Parental Embodied Mentalizing and its Relation to Mind‐Mindedness, Sensitivity, and Attachment Security

Shai, Dana; Meins, Elizabeth

doi:10.1111/infa.12244

Cited by 26 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…Longitudinal studies with larger and more diverse populations are needed. We recommend that these studies use multiple assessments of PM and coparenting, combining observational as well as questionnaire data to address the problems and limitations concerning the measurement of coparenting (Feinberg, 2003; McHale et al, 2004) and PM (Shai & Meins, 2018). Furthermore, future studies can also examine changes in PM and parenting cooperation in lab conditions that manipulate parents’ anxiety level.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mediating and moderating links between coparenting, parental mentalization, parents’ anxiety, and children’s behavior problems.

Dollberg¹,

Gamliel²,

Levy³

2021

Journal of Family Psychology

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The goal of this study is to integrate family systems theory, reflected in the construct of coparenting, with the attachment theory's concept of mentalization and how they are linked with children's behavior problems. We investigate the direct, indirect, and moderating links between mothers' and fathers' perceived coparenting, parental mentalization, and children's externalizing and internalizing behavior in the context of parents' general anxiety. Our sample consists of 78 cohabiting, heterosexual Israeli couples and their 3-to 5-year-old children. Both parents independently completed self-report questionnaires regarding their general anxiety, coparenting experiences and children's externalizing and internalizing behavior and were individually interviewed to assess their mind-mindedness. Actor-partner interdependent model extended for mediation analysis (APIMeM) revealed a direct actor and partner effect of parents' general anxiety on perceived coparenting and on the child's externalizing and internalizing behavior, and an indirect actor effect via coparenting, in the case of the child's externalizing behavior. In all models tested, the links were similar for mothers and fathers. Regression analysis with a PROCESS macro showed that maternal mind-mindedness, but not paternal mind-mindedness, moderated the direct link between parents' general anxiety and the child's externalizing behavior. Findings demonstrate the significant impact of fathers' and mothers' anxiety on the family system and on children in particular. We discuss the importance of coparenting as an executive subsystem in the family and of maternal mentalization as a buffer against the negative impact of parents' general anxiety on the child and suggest their potential contribution for prevention and treatment interventions.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mediating and moderating links between coparenting, parental mentalization, parents’ anxiety, and children’s behavior problems.

Dollberg¹,

Gamliel²,

Levy³

2021

Journal of Family Psychology

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“…Caregivers who are better able to perceive and understand their own child's mental states have children who develop better theory of mind and emotion regulation skills and who are at lower risk for internalizing and externalizing problems (Camoirano, 2017;McMahon & Bernier, 2017). Mothers who tend to reflect on their child's mental states exhibit more responsive behavior when interacting with their child (Shai & Meins, 2018), evidence more involvement and concern for their child (Rostad & Whitaker, 2016), and engage in fewer negative caregiving behaviors, such as hostility and intrusiveness (Kelly, Slade, & Grienenberger, 2005).…”

Section: Construct: Perception and Understanding Of Othersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Advancing the RDoC initiative through the assessment of caregiver social processes

et al. 2021

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The relationships infants and young children have with their caregivers are fundamental to their survival and well-being. Theorists and researchers across disciplines have attempted to describe and assess the variation in these relationships, leading to a general acceptance that caregiving is critical to understanding child functioning, including developmental psychopathology. At the same time, we lack consensus on how to assess these fundamental relationships. In the present paper, we first review research documenting the importance of the caregiver–child relationship in understanding environmental risk for psychopathology. Second, we propose that the National Institute of Mental Health's Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) initiative provides a useful framework for extending the study of children's risk for psychopathology by assessing their caregivers’ social processes. Third, we describe the units of analysis for caregiver social processes, documenting how the specific subconstructs in the domain of social processes are relevant to the goal of enhancing knowledge of developmental psychopathology. Lastly, we highlight how past research can inform new directions in the study of caregiving and the parent–child relationship through this innovative extension of the RDoC initiative.

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“…In our upcoming research project, we will also use an instrument developed by Shai et al (2017), Shai and Meins (2018) called PEM. PEM stands for "Parental Embodied Mentalizing" and is both the name of the instrument and the name of an important developmental and relational phenomena in the early interaction between infants and parents, which the instrument measures.…”

Section: Parental Embodied Mentalizingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pre-verbal Children’s Participation in a New Key. How Intersubjectivity Can Contribute to Understanding and Implementation of Child Rights in Early Childhood

Våpenstad

Bakkenget

2021

Front. Psychol.

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Children’s participation and involvement has increasingly been on the agenda for the last few decades. The right for children to participate was established in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). However, even though the UNCRC gives the right to participate to all children, national policy and practice seems to draw a line on verbal language and exclude pre-verbal infants from participation. The spur of this paper is to challenge the exclusion of infants, to describe how pre-linguistic children communicate their intentions, and to show how an understanding of children’s participation grounded in intersubjectivity, can inform and reframe the participation of all children as being fundamentally about close relationships with sensitive and containing adults who look within themselves for the voice of the child. The infant’s proto-conversational narrative communicates interests and feelings through sympathetic rhythms of what infant researchers have named “communicative musicality,” and it can surface in the mother’s narrative about the child and their relationship. Intersubjectivity oppose the monadic view of man as separate and left only to imitate others and claims that humans from the very start are intertwined in a fundamental thirdness of co-created reality. Infants are powerful communicators who actively engage in intersubjective relationships with their caretakers only days after birth, and newborns actively influence and even control the mental process of those who communicate with them. Early childhood participation then, would be to find within ourselves the voice of the child. A research project building on the theories and ideas described in the first part of the article, is presented.

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Parental Embodied Mentalizing and its Relation to Mind‐Mindedness, Sensitivity, and Attachment Security

Cited by 26 publications

References 58 publications

Mediating and moderating links between coparenting, parental mentalization, parents’ anxiety, and children’s behavior problems.

Mediating and moderating links between coparenting, parental mentalization, parents’ anxiety, and children’s behavior problems.

Advancing the RDoC initiative through the assessment of caregiver social processes

Pre-verbal Children’s Participation in a New Key. How Intersubjectivity Can Contribute to Understanding and Implementation of Child Rights in Early Childhood

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