Mothers’ Empathic Understanding of their Toddlers: Associations with Maternal Depression and Sensitivity

Abstract

Mothers' empathic understanding of their children's motives, thoughts, and feelings is thought to guide parenting behaviors and shape the mother-child relationship. However, little is known about the relation between empathic understanding and parenting behaviors during developmental shifts that may be emotionally challenging for mothers, such as the transition from infancy to the toddler years, or how it may relate to maternal depressive symptoms. We assessed relations between maternal empathic understanding, depression, and sensitivity. We developed a coding system, the Empathic Understanding Assessment (EUA), to measure this construct in the mothers of 30-month old children. One hundred twenty eight mother-child pairs participated in a series of lab-based tasks designed to be challenging for the children. Mothers then watched these videotaped interactions and responded to questions regarding their children's experiences. Interview content was coded using the EUA. Results indicated that mothers higher in empathic understanding and more intensely emotional were rated as more sensitive. Maternal depression was negatively related to empathic understanding. The importance of considering the role of maternal empathic understanding in parenting behavior is discussed, as are potential implications for child outcomes.

High‐quality interactions with infants: relationships with early‐childhood practitioners’ interpretations and qualification levels in play and routine contexts

“…The importance of interpreting behaviour by reference to infants' mental states is also supported by Feldman and Reznick (1996) who found positive associations between mothers' tendency to ascribe intentions to their infants' behaviour and their levels of sensitivity. Similar associations observed in the mothers of toddlers (Coyne et al 2007) and older children (Lok and McMahon 2006) support the hypothesis that the depth and complexity of practitioner interpretations may play an important role in predicting the quality of their interactions with infants.…”

Connect and shape: A parenting meta-strategy

“…The parent remains within sensory distance and clearly communicates his or her emotional availability in response to their child's cues. Parental empathic understanding is crucial to parental responsiveness and a necessary component of connect and shape (Coyne, Low, Miller, Seifer, & Dickstein, 2007). Through connect and shape the parent aims to meet their child's emotional needs.…”

“…Connect and shape requires parental psychological flexibility, empathic understanding of their child (Coyne et al, 2007), acceptance of their child's emotions (Ramsden & Hubbard, 2002) and defusion from verbal parenting rules (K. Whittingham, 2014). ACT should be drawn upon as needed to promote flexible parenting in conjunction with connect and shape.…”

Maternal Depression, Locus of Control, and Emotion Regulatory Strategy as Predictors of Preschoolers’ Internalizing Problems

“…Drawing upon the attachment literature, which highlights the importance of a rich, nuanced, and accurate ''internal working model'' of one's child, researchers rated mothers' maternal empathic awareness in 128 mothers of 30-month old children. Mothers who reported higher depression scores were less engaged, less sensitive, and less aware of the emotional impact their behaviors had on their children (Coyne et al 2007). Consequently, this may contribute to their perceptions of being unable to influence their children's negative emotions.…”

“…Perceptions of being out of control of children's behavior and emotions may be linked with over-reliance on avoidant emotion regulatory strategies, such as experiential avoidance (Coyne et al 2007). Experiential avoidance (EA), originally described in the literature supporting Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), is a purposeful strategy of minimizing or avoiding unwanted or negative thoughts, emotions, and physiological experiences (Hayes and Gifford 1997).…”