The Role of Child Emotionality in Child Behavior and Maternal Instruction on Planning Tasks

This study explored the relation of children's emotional functioning to children's behavior during individual planning and mother's and children's behaviors during joint planning. Participants were 118 mothers and their second‐grade children. Mothers rated children on their emotional intensity and children rated themselves on their use of emotion regulation strategies. Children and mother–child dyads were videotaped during planning tasks and independent observers rated their behavior. Child emotional intensity was directly related to children being less engaged in the task and to an emphasis in maternal instruction on regulatory behaviors. Some types of emotion regulation strategies modified these relations. Findings suggest that child emotionality may play an important role in the early school years in children's opportunities to learn during social‐cognitive activity.     

Maternal Emotion Socialization in Maltreating and Non-maltreating Families: Implications for Children's Emotion Regulation

This study investigated the socialization of children's emotion regulation in physically maltreating and non‐maltreating mother–child dyads (N = 80 dyads). Mother–child dyads participated in the parent–child emotion interaction task ( Shipman & Zeman, 1999 ) in which they talked about emotionally‐arousing situations. The PCEIT was coded for maternal validation and invalidation in response to children's emotion. Mothers were also interviewed about their approach to emotion socialization using the meta‐emotion interview‐parent version ( Katz & Gottman, 1999 ). The meta‐emotion interview‐parent version was coded for maternal emotion coaching. Mothers also completed measures that assessed their child abuse potential and abuse‐related behaviors as well as children's emotion regulation. Findings indicated that maltreated children demonstrated fewer adaptive emotion regulation skills and more emotion dysregulation than non‐maltreated children. In addition, maltreating mothers engaged in less validation and emotion coaching and more invalidation in response to children's emotion than non‐maltreating mothers. Finally, maternal emotion socialization behaviors mediated the relation between maltreatment status and children's adaptive emotion regulation skills.     

Mother–Child Reminiscing About Peer Experiences and Children's Peer‐related Self‐views and Social Competence

This study examined mother–child reminiscing about children's experiences with peers and its relation to children's peer‐related self‐views and social competence. Sixty‐three mothers and their preschool‐aged children discussed at home two specific past events involving the child and his or her peers, one event being positive and one negative. The children's self‐views in peer relationships were assessed at school during individual interviews, and their social competence was rated by mothers. Both maternal and child participation in the reminiscing, in terms of reminiscing style and content, were uniquely associated with children's peer‐related self‐views and social competence. The results suggest the important role of family narrative practices in children's social development.     

Symbols Build Communication and Thought: The Role of Gestures and Words in the Development of Engagement Skills and Social‐emotional Concepts during Toddlerhood

Social skills and symbol skills are positively associated in middle childhood, but the relation between these domains is less clear in newly verbal toddlers. Vygotsky proposed that symbols are both tools for interaction and mental tools for thought. Do symbols help even very young children build skills for interacting with and conceptualizing the social world? Longitudinal data from 108 children and mothers were collected when children were 14, 24, and 36 months. Children's gestures and words during mother–child interactions were used as symbol skill indicators to predict children's abilities to engage others and the number of social‐emotional concepts children portray during play. In a series of growth models, words had a stronger effect on engagement skills whereas early gesture use predicted later development of social‐emotional concepts. Therefore, even in early development, symbols serve as both communication tools and mental tools to construct understanding of the social‐emotional world.     

Emotion Socialization in the Context of Risk and Psychopathology: Maternal Emotion Coaching Predicts Better Treatment Outcomes for Emotionally Labile Children with Oppositional Defiant Disorder

We examined whether maternal emotion coaching at pretreatment predicted children's treatment response following a 12‐week program addressing children's oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) symptoms. A total of 89 mother–child dyads participated. At pretreatment, mothers and children engaged in an emotion talk task. Mothers also reported their beliefs about emotions at pretreatment and their child's disruptive behavior symptoms, emotion regulation, and emotion lability/negativity at pre‐, mid‐, and post‐treatment. Clinicians reported children's symptom severity at pre‐ and post‐treatment. Children's emotion lability/negativity moderated effects of maternal emotion coaching on children's post‐treatment ODD symptoms, with stronger benefits of emotion coaching for children high in emotion lability/negativity. Results suggest that emotion coaching may promote treatment response for children with ODD who are especially at risk due to their emotionality.     

Factors Related to Social Competence in Elementary School Among Children of Adolescent Mothers

This study examined factors related to social competence in first grade among children of low‐income, adolescent mothers. The sample included 83 mother–child dyads who had participated in a family support program for adolescent mothers. Characteristics of the child, mother, and the child's living context were examined for their relationship to children's social skills and problem behaviors. Several factors had significant bivariate relationships with social competence. Children with higher social skills and lower levels of problem behaviors were more likely to have received higher quality parenting, to have higher academic skills, and to live in neighborhoods with lower poverty rates. Children with higher social skills were less likely to have changed schools. In a path analysis, only academic skills were significantly related to either measure of social competence when other factors were controlled. Quality of parenting was indirectly related to social competence, and the effect was mediated by academic skills. School transience was also related to academic skills in the path analysis.     

Assessing low‐income African‐American pre‐schoolers' behaviour problems in relationship to community violence,inter‐partner conflict,parenting, informal social support and social skills

This study examined the relations among community violence exposure, inter‐partner conflict and informal social support and the behaviour problems of pre‐schoolers, and explored how mothers' parenting skills and children's social skills may mediate the child outcomes associated with such exposure. Participants were 185 African‐American mothers and female caregivers of Head Start children who completed study measures in a structured interview. Path analyses revealed that greater inter‐partner conflict was associated with more internalizing and externalizing child behaviour problems. Positive parenting was associated with fewer internalizing and externalizing behaviours. Higher levels of child social skills were associated with fewer internalizing and externalizing behaviour problems. Child social skills fully mediated the relationship between community violence and externalizing behaviours as well as between informal support and externalizing behaviours. Social skills partially mediated the relationships between positive parenting and externalizing behaviours. No mediating effect was found on the relationships between inter‐partner conflict and child behaviour problems. Implications of the findings for intervention and future research are discussed.     

Parent and Child Cognitive Representations of Social Situations and Children's Social Competence

The current study examines the relations among parent and child social information processing components and their links to children's social competence. Ninety‐seven kindergarten children and their mothers and fathers responded to open‐ended vignettes that involved conflict with a peer. Goals and strategies for both parents and children were assessed. Results show that there is some consistency between parents and children in the types of goals and strategies that are provided. Further, fathers’ and children's goals and strategies were related to children's social competence but only limited support for children's cognitions as a mediator between parental cognitions and peer competence was found. The implications for the role of social information processing in the development of children's social competence are noted.     

Romantic partner satisfaction among low‐income mothers: Links to child‐peer and teacher relationships via mother‐child conflict

The current project explores maternal inter‐parental (IP) romantic partner satisfaction in relation to mother‐child conflict and later peer and teacher relations from early to middle childhood among a sample of low‐income, ethnically diverse mothers (N = 271) who were part of a longitudinal study testing the effectiveness of the Family Check‐Up intervention. We hypothesized spillover effects from IP dissatisfaction during early childhood to mother‐child conflict two years later. Greater mother‐child conflict in turn was expected to lead to poorer peer relations and greater conflict with teachers in middle childhood. The results support a spillover effect from lower IP satisfaction at age 3 to higher mother‐child conflict at age 5 to poorer peer relations and greater conflict with teachers at school at ages 8.5, 9.5, and 10.5. Mother‐child conflict significantly mediates these pathways. The results support the importance of IP satisfaction and mother‐child conflict in early childhood as critical factors in pathways leading to low‐income children's social relationships at school during middle childhood.     

Theory of Mind, Self-worth and the Mother–Child Relationship

We tested the hypothesis that mother–child warmth and responsiveness would moderate the link between young children's theory of mind skills and self‐worth. Participants included 125 same‐sex pairs of 3.5 year‐old twins and their mothers. A battery of tests was individually administered to measure the children's theory of mind skills and verbal intelligence, and their self‐reported self‐worth was assessed using a puppet interview. Following visits to the families' homes, the observers completed ratings of warm responsive mother–child behavior based on videotaped unstructured and structured observations. As expected, warm responsive behavior moderated the relation between their theory of mind and the child's self‐worth. Their theory of mind was positively associated with self‐worth in warm responsive mother–child dyads, and there was weaker evidence that their theory of mind may be negatively associated with self‐worth in less warm, unresponsive mother–child dyads.     

Changing tides: Mothers’ supportive emotion socialization relates negatively to third‐grade children's social adjustment in school

Parents’ supportive reactions to children's negative emotions are thought to promote children's social adjustment. Research heretofore has implicitly assumed that such reactions are equally supportive of children's adjustment across ages. Recent findings challenge this assumption, suggesting that during middle childhood, socialization practices previously understood as supportive may in fact impede children's social adjustment. We explored this possibility in a sample of 203 third‐grade children and their mothers. Using structural equation modeling, we tested associations between mothers’ supportive (i.e., problem‐ and emotion‐focused) reactions to children's negative emotions and children's social skills and problems as reported by mothers and teachers. Mothers’ supportive reactions predicted greater social adjustment in children as reported by mothers. Inverse associations, however, were found with teachers’ reports of children's social adjustment: mothers’ supportive reactions predicted fewer socioemotional skills and more problem behaviors. These contrasting patterns suggest potential unperceived costs associated with mothers’ supportiveness of children's negative emotions for third‐grade children's social adjustment in school and highlight the importance of considering associations between socialization practices and children's various social contexts. The findings also highlight a need for greater consideration of what supportiveness means across different developmental periods.     

Maternal Mental State Language and Preschool Children's Attachment Security: Relation to Children's Mental State Language and Expressions of Emotional Understanding

Mothers’ mental state language in conversation with their preschool children, and children's preschool attachment security were examined for their effects on children's mental state language and expressions of emotional understanding in their conversation. Children discussed an emotionally salient event with their mothers and then relayed the event to a stranger. Compared to mothers of insecurely attached children, mothers of securely attached children used more mental state language and had children who used more mental state language with both mother and stranger, and who expressed more emotional understanding in the mother–child conversation. Maternal mental state language and attachment security made shared contributions to children's mental state language with their mothers. Maternal mental state language accounted for the effects of attachment security on children's expressions of emotional understanding in the mother–child conversation. Mothers’ mental state language to their children may enhance secure attachment and foster children's understanding of mental states in self and others.     

Taiwanese–Canadian Mothers' Beliefs About Personal Freedom for Their Young Children

This study examined Taiwanese–Canadian mothers’ conceptions of personal freedom in everyday situations for their children and the influence of acculturation on their beliefs. Forty mothers of six‐ to eight‐year‐old children participated in a semistructured interview and sorting task. Interview responses revealed that, regardless of acculturation, child decision‐making was important and that mothers should negotiate and compromise with their child on everyday issues such as clothing, food, activities, daily routine and homework. They believed that child resistance was motivated by the children's personal interests, laziness, limit testing and their emotional state. Sources of conflict were resolved by parental authority, discussing/negotiating and conceding to the child. The sorting task also revealed that personal issues were judged as within their children's jurisdiction.     

Marital Conflict, Child Emotional Security about Family Relationships and Child Adjustment

Addressing a gap in process‐oriented understanding of relations between marital conflict and children's adjustment, propositions of the emotional security hypothesis from a family‐wide perspective were tested in a longitudinal research design. Participants were 181 families and their 11–12 year‐old‐child (115 boys, 76 girls) living in Wales, in the United Kingdom. Relations between marital conflict, children's emotional security about marital conflict and parenting, respectively, and children's adjustment were assessed based on reports by mothers, fathers, and children and videotaped analogue procedures completed by children. Structural equation modelling indicated that children's emotional security about interparental conflict (emotional regulation, cognitive representations and behavioural regulation) mediated the relation between marital conflict and children's security about parenting. Processes pertaining to children's security in multiple family systems (i.e., interparental and parent–child) provided an indirect mechanism through which interparental conflict affected children's symptoms of psychological distress (internalising and externalising problems) assessed 12 months later. Future directions for further tests of comprehensive, theoretically based models for the effects of marital conflict on children are discussed.     

Parental Emotion Coaching and Child Emotion Regulation as Protective Factors for Children with Oppositional Defiant Disorder

We assessed linkages of mothers' emotion coaching and children's emotion regulation and emotion lability/negativity with children's adjustment in 72 mother–child dyads seeking treatment for oppositional defiant disorder (ODD). Dyads completed the questionnaires and discussed emotion‐related family events. Maternal emotion coaching was associated with children's emotion regulation, which in turn was related to higher mother‐reported adaptive skills, higher child‐reported internalizing symptoms, and lower child‐reported adjustment. When children were high in emotion lability/negativity, mothers' emotion coaching was associated with lower mother and child reports of externalizing behavior. Results suggest the role of emotion regulation and emotion lability in child awareness of socio‐emotional problems and support the potential of maternal emotion coaching as a protective factor for children with ODD, especially for those high in emotion lability.     

The Interaction between Negative Emotionality and Effortful Control in Early Social‐emotional Development

Interactions between reactive and regulatory dimensions of temperament may be particularly relevant to children's adjustment but are examined infrequently. This study investigated these interactions by examining effortful control as a moderator of the relations of fear and frustration reactivity to children's social competence, internalizing, and externalizing problems. Participants included 306 three‐year‐old children and their mothers. Children's effortful control was measured using observational measures, and reactivity was assessed with both observational and mother‐reported measures. Mothers reported on children's adjustment. Significant interactions indicated that children with higher mother‐reported fear or higher observed frustration and lower executive control showed higher externalizing problems whereas children with higher observed fear and higher delay ability demonstrated lower externalizing problems. These results highlight effortful control as a moderator of the relation between reactivity and adjustment, and may inform the development of interventions geared toward the management of specific negative affects.     

Language Matching Among Mother‐child Dyads: Associations with Child Attachment and Emotion Reactivity

Links between mother‐infant affective matching and attachment security are well‐documented, but research on other types of behavioral matching and attachment security are lacking, as are studies that examine these constructs later in children's development. We examine language style matching (LSM) between mothers and their school‐aged children (N = 68), using interviews with each dyad member. As predicted, regressions revealed that higher mother‐child relational LSM was associated with greater child attachment security (operationalized as high security, low dismissal), and that higher LSM predicted smaller increases in children's electrodermal response to a relational probe 1.5 years later. Further, mother‐child relational LSM was a mediator in the indirect path between children's attachment security and children's reactivity. We discuss the potential utility of LSM as a measure of relationship quality and future studies that could refine our understanding of parent‐child language matching.     

Does It Matter if Preschool Children and Mothers Discuss Positive vs. Negative Events During Reminiscing? Links with Mother‐reported Attachment,Family Emotional Climate,and Socioemotional Development

The purpose of the study was to examine the differential relations between mother–child reminiscing about a positive emotional event vs. a negative emotional event and attachment security, family climate, and young children's socioemotional development. Fifty preschool children (M age = 50.69 months, SD = 4.64) and their mothers completed two reminiscing conversations at the laboratory, which were coded for emotion‐laden discourse, affect, and elaboration, and children completed measures of emotional understanding and representations of relationships. At their homes, mothers completed the attachment Q‐sort and the self‐report family inventory. Both attachment security and family climate were related to the quality of mother–child affect and maternal elaboration during both positive and negative reminiscing conversations. Attachment security and family climate, however, were principally related to discussion of emotion during the negative event discussions. In addition, it was mother–child reminiscing about the negative emotional event that was associated with high levels of children's socioemotional development.     

Marital Conflict, Children's Representations of Family Relationships, and Children's Dispositions Towards Peer Conflict Strategies

The links among marital relations and children's representations were examined. Forty‐seven children between the ages of 5 and 8 completed the Family Stories Task (FAST) to obtain their narrative representations of family relations and performed a variation of a puppet procedure ( Mize & Ladd, 1988 ) to assess children's dispositions towards peer conflict strategies. Their parents completed a set of questionnaires regarding marital quality. Results demonstrated relations between marital conflict and children's dispositions towards peer conflict strategies in conflict situations. Children's more negative dispositions towards peer conflict and aggressive behavior in the peer conflict scenarios were each associated with more overt conflict behaviors by mothers and fathers, respectively, and more covert conflict behavior by mothers. In addition, children's internal representations of parent–child relations served as a mediator between marital conflict and children's notions about conflict behavior towards peers.     

Middle Childhood Feelings Toward Mothers: Predictions From Maternal Directiveness at the Age of Two and Respect for Autonomy Currently

The goals of this study were to examine (1) stability of maternal directiveness during interactions with their children from toddlerhood to late middle childhood, (2) direct and mediated relations between mothers' directiveness when children were two years old, mothers' respect for autonomy and children's positivity and negativity toward their mothers when children were in late middle childhood, and (3) differences in these paths by ethnoracial group. Participants included 876 European‐American, 789 African‐American, and 411 Mexican‐American mothers and their children from the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project. Maternal respect for autonomy at Time 2 partially mediated an association between Time 1 directiveness and observed child positivity toward mothers at Time 2. There was also a direct inverse link between Time 1 maternal directiveness and children's observed positivity toward mothers at Time 2. Relations were similar across ethnoracial groups and for boys and girls. The discussion focuses on heterotypic stability in directive parenting and its implications for children's feelings toward their mothers.