Working and Playing Together: Prediction of Preschool Social-Emotional Competence from Mother-Child Interaction

• Published in: Child development Vol. 62; no. 2; pp. 242 - 249
• Main Authors: Denham, Susanne A., Renwick, Susan M., Holt, Robert W.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Malden, MA University of Chicago Press 01.04.1991; Blackwell; University of Chicago Press for the Society for Research in Child Development, etc; Blackwell Publishing Ltd
• Subjects: Affective Behavior; Assertiveness; Behavior; Biological and medical sciences; Child Behavior; Child development; Children; Developmental psychology; Emotional expression; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Interpersonal Competence; Mothers; Parent Child Relationship; Parents & parenting; Peer relations; Personal Autonomy; Positive Affect; Predictor Variables; Preschool Children; Preschool education; Prosocial Behavior; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Sadness; Sex Differences; Social behavior; Social interaction; Social research; Task Orientation; Human; Preschool age; Emotionality; Play; Social behavior; Social interaction; Prediction; Sex; Social aptitude; Mother child relation; Child
• ISSN: 0009-3920; 1467-8624
• DOI: 10.2307/1131000

The impact of mother-child interaction on preschoolers' social-emotional competence was evaluated. Twenty-five girls and 23 boys (mean age = 44 mos) and their mothers were videotaped performing four play/teaching tasks. Preschool teachers completed the Baumrind Preschool Behavior Q-Sort and the Behar Problem Behavior Questionnaire. Mother-child interaction aggregates represented task orientation, positive emotion, and allowance of autonomy/reliance on mother. Results indicated that specific maternal interaction aggregates coherently predicted the children's Positive Social Behavior, Assertiveness, and Sadness in the preschool setting. Child aggregates were less effective predictors of teachers' ratings. Several gender differences in the prediction of social-emotional competence were found (e. g., maternal allowance of autonomy predicted girls' sadness, but boys' sadness was predicted by their own negative emotion). These findings' contributions to the parent-child literature are discussed.