Poster #137 - Influence of Second Child and Maternal Resilience in Picture-book Shared-reading Activities

• In Event: 2-163 - Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Section - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Integrative Statement

Picture book shared-reading is now becoming a popular family activity with infants and young children. Previous studies showed that mother-child shared reading was correlated with increased prosocial behavior and social understanding in children (Aram, Deitcher, Shoshan, & Ziv, 2017). One possible mechanism is that shared-reading, as a interactive activity, can facilitate the development of joint attention in young children. However, the birth of a second child in the family becomes a challenge to parents and the older sibling in China, especially after decades of practice of one-child policy. Hence, we interested in the influence of the second child in shared-reading activities. Moreover, resilience, as a person characteristic, indicates an individual’s ability to handle stressful situations. Therefore, our study hypothesized that the presence of the second child in the shared-reading activity would decrease joint attention in shared-reading. Moreover, we hypothesized that mothers with higher resilience would more tend to use strategies to involve both children in the shared-reading activity, which in turn, increased joint attention.

Our study currently recruited 24 two-child Chinese families (older siblings M = 66.65 months, SD = 19.22 months; younger siblings M = 31.35 months, SD = 20.24 months; older siblings 41.18% female, younger siblings 50.00% female), asked, and videotaped the mothers to read a picture book with their older child with and without the presence of the second child. In the first five minutes, the mother read with the older child without the second child. In the latter five minutes, experimenter brought the second child into the reading room without any instruction. Joint attention was coded from the video in 15 seconds intervals when both the mother and the older sibling were focusing on the reading in the first five minutes, or when the mother and the two children all were focusing on the reading in the latter five minutes. Moreover, strategies that involved both children in the activity were coded when the mother attempted to invite, shift locations, or ask the older child to invite the younger child into the shared-reading activity. Resilience was assessed with the Brief Resilience Scale (Smith et al., 2008; α = .80 - .91).

The presence of the second children in the reading room significantly reduced the presence of joint attention on the shared-reading activity between the mothers and the older siblings, t(23) = -6.44, p < .001. However, mothers who used strategies to involve both children in shared-reading reported significantly higher resilience than those who did not, t(22) = 3.91, p = .001. Moreover, joint attention practices in the latter five minutes were significantly higher when the mother attempted to involve both children than when the mother did not, t(13.83) = 2.23, p = .043. Therefore, the presence of the second child did hamper the joint attention practice of the older child in shared-reading activity. However, mothers with high resilience tended to use strategies to involve both children, which protected them from this negative effect of the second child. These results provide insights into shared-reading practices and parent-child relationship.

Authors

• Zijing He, Sun Yat-sen University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Guangyu Zeng, University of Miami
  Presenting Author

• Yan Mu, Sun Yat-sen University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Wanting Zhang, Sun Yat-sen University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Meng Meng Wang, Sun Yat-sen University
  Non-Presenting Author