Parent-child emotion communication, attachment, and affective narratives

Abstract

Forty-four pre-schoolers (ages 4.3 to 5.8 years) and their primary caregivers participated in a study on the connections between parent-child emotion communication and a narrative assessment of pre-schoolers' attachment. Children completed the Separation Anxiety Test (SAT), a narrative assessment of children's responses to attachment-related separations (including self-reliance, avoidance, attachment and coherence scores). Several aspects of parent-child discussions of emotion-eliciting events were also assessed in the Emotion Communication Task. Results indicated that SAT coherence was positively related to SAT attachment and negatively related to SAT avoidance. Furthermore, SAT coherence was positively related to parental scaffolding and negatively related to parental and child negativity during the Emotion Communication Task. Parental scaffolding and child reciprocity were positively related to each other and, in general, were negatively related to parental and child negativity. Discussion focused on the potential contributions of children's interactions with caregivers to the development of children's attachment narratives and emotion-related understanding.

Beyond the dyad: do family interactions influence children's attachment representations in middle childhood?

“…Children of more sensitive mothers display a higher level of security in their attachment representations (Goodman, Aber, Berlin, & Brooks-Gunn, 1998) and portray caregiving figures as more caring and less neglecting than do children of less sensitive mothers (Murray, Woolgar, Briers, & Hipwell, 1999). Development of coherency in children's attachment representations has also been linked to participation in mother-child conversations that are more positive and reciprocal (Laible, 2004;Leibowitz, Ramos-Marcuse, & Arsenio, 2002;Main et al, 1985). Coherency of father-child discourse has also been shown to be associated with children's secure attachment representations (Grossmann et al, 2002;Main et al, 1985).…”

Family emotional climate, attachment security and young children's emotion knowledge in a high risk sample

“…A substantial body of research on mother–child conversations and children's emotion socialization rests on semi‐structured conversation tasks (e.g. Denham et al , 1994; Garner et al , 1997; Laible, 2004a, 2004b; Leibowitz, Ramos‐Marcuse, & Arsenio, 2002), demonstrating the validity of measuring mother–child language using this protocol. Conversations were considered complete when mothers and children had discussed all three emotions, regardless of how long the conversation continued, and mothers were given no additional prompts beyond the request to discuss the three emotions.…”

Reminiscing Style During Conversations About Emotion‐laden Events and Effects of Attachment Security Among Italian Mother–Child Dyads

“…We acknowledge that a concurrent measure of the child's secure base behavior was used here, and it may not be a direct assessment of the child's internal working models of attachment. It will be helpful in future research to use additional methods of representational assessment (e.g., Bretherton, Ridgeway, & Cassidy, 1990;Dubois-Comtois, Cyr, & Moss, 2011;Leibowitz, Ramos-Marcuse, & Arsenio, 2002) in addition to the AQS.…”