Family narratives about the shared past may be a particularly significant site for preadolescents' emerging sense of self both as an individual and as a member of a unified family. We examined the relations between family narrative interaction style when reminiscing and preadolescents' sense of self. Results indicated three narrative interaction styles that describe the extent to which families discuss or fail to discuss their past in integrated and validating ways. Specifically, conversations with a coordinated perspective incorporated information from all members and were related to higher self-esteem, especially in girls. Conversations with an individual perspective, in which family members took turns telling their thoughts and feelings about the event without integration among the perspectives, were associated with a more external locus of control, especially in boys. Conversations with an imposed perspective, in which one family member was in charge of the conversation or in which unpleasant exchanges between members occurred, were not associated with either self-esteem or locus of control. Implications of these narrative interaction styles for children's developing sense of self are discussed.

Research with adults indicates that writing causal-explanatory and emotionally disclosing narratives of stressful experiences is related to psychological well-being. Limited research with children has shown mixed results, but developmental theory suggests that simple extrapolation from adult findings might be problematic. In this study, 9-to 13-year-old children engaged in three days of writing under emotional and non-emotional instructions, and completed measures of depression, anxiety, strengths and difficulties, and somatic symptoms both at baseline and 2 months following intervention. Narratives were coded using a developmentally appropriate, exhaustive coding system. Children in the emotional writing group wrote more about negative evaluations, problems, emotions, explanations and coping than children in the non-emotional writing group. However, those children who wrote more about negative evaluations, problems and explanations subsequently showed higher levels of anxiety, depression and difficulties. Due to limited narrative and emotional regulation skills, expressive writing may not benefit, and may even be detrimental for, some children.Narratives are socially and culturally conventionalised forms for organising and representing our past experiences (Bruner, 1987;McAdams, 1992). Because personal narratives move beyond simple memory of what happened to include explanations and emotional evaluations, narratives are the way in which we create meaning of our personal past, and are linked to Correspondence should be addressed to: Robyn Fivush,

Family reminiscing is a critical part of family interaction related to child outcome. In this study, we extended previous research by examining both mothers and fathers, in two-parent racially diverse middle-class families, reminiscing with their 9- to 12-year-old children about both the facts and the emotional aspects of shared positive and negative events. Mothers were more elaborative than fathers, and both mothers and fathers elaborated and evaluated more about the facts of positive than negative events, but there were no differences in parental reminiscing about the emotional aspects of these events. Fathers showed a more consistent reminiscing style across event and information type, whereas mothers seem to show a more nuanced style differentiated by topic. Most interesting, maternal elaborations and evaluations about the facts of negative events were related to higher child well-being, whereas paternal elaborations and evaluations about the emotional aspects of both positive and negative events were related to lower child well-being. Implications for the gendered nature of reminiscing are discussed.

Family narratives about the past are an important context for the socialization of emotion, but relations between expression of negative emotion and children's emerging competence are conflicting. In this study, 24 middle-class two-parent families narrated a shared negative experience together and we examined the process (initiations and collaborations) and function (the expression and explanation of emotions) of co-constructed narratives in relation to preadolescents' perceived competencies and selfesteem. Family narratives in which specific emotions were expressed and explained in a collaborative fashion, especially negative emotion, were positively related to preadolescents' reported competencies and self-esteem, whereas family narratives that expressed general positive emotion were negatively related to preadolescents' perceived competencies. Implications of family narratives about emotional events, specifically the ways in which families discuss emotion, in relation to preadolescents' self-development are discussed. Current literature suggests that the ways in which families express and discuss emotion influences children's social competences and behavior. Research focusing on parental expression of positive and negative emotions finds that the ways in which parents express emotions in the home affects children's expression of emotion outside of the home, and as a result, influences their social competence (Eisenberg et al.

Past research has suggested that family reminiscing may be a particularly important avenue for the development of children's well-being. In this study, the authors examined the ways in which mothers and fathers scaffold conversations about past emotional events with their preadolescent children. Narratives of positive and negative shared family events were coded for parental expression and explanation of emotion, and these variables were related to measures of children's developing self-esteem and emotional and behavioral adjustment 2 years later. Overall, mothers express and explain more emotion than do fathers, and maternal expression and explanation of emotion within family narratives is generally related to positive self-esteem and adjustment in sons and daughters. However, paternal expression and explanation of emotion within family narratives generally appears to be related to poorer self-esteem and adjustment for sons and daughters. Implications for adolescent development, parental scaffolding of emotion, and gender roles within the family are discussed.