Culture, Parenting, and Language: Respeto in Latinx Mother-Child Interactions

• In Event: Placing Observations of Joint Engagement in Cultural Contexts

Abstract

Parent-child interactions are integrally bound with culture. Children develop within a cultural niche in which the physical and social settings, customs of childcare, and psychology of caregivers influence how children perceive, think, and act (Super & Harkness, 1986). In Latinx families, the value of respeto (respect) is a cornerstone of parenting. Respeto embraces the idea that parents have the authority to expect and demand positive behaviors from their children and that children should obey and defer to their parents (Calzada, Fernandez, & Cortes, 2010; Stein & Polo, 2014). Despite the widespread consensus that respeto is core to Latinx parenting, researchers primarily assess respeto through parent self-report. To our knowledge, no study has directly measured respeto during parent-child interactions or considered respeto from a dyadic perspective that involves both mother and child. Thus, we developed a culturally-informed, dyadic measure of respeto to characterize play interactions between 2.5-year-old toddlers and their U.S. Mexican immigrant, low-income mothers. We asked whether our observational measure of respeto: (1) relates to standard ratings of mother-child interactions, including maternal sensitivity and cognitive stimulation; (2) relates to mothers’ and toddlers’ language production and discourse during play interactions; and (3) explains unique variance in mother and toddler language exchanges above standard measures of the quality of mother-child interaction.
Low-income Mexican immigrant Spanish-speaking mothers and their 2.5-year-old toddlers (N = 128) were video-recorded during play (Mage = 30.2 months, SD = 0.52), and two culturally-informed items of respeto were coded: parent calm authority and child affiliative obedience (see Figures 1 and 2). Respeto related to standard ratings of mother and child interactions (e.g., maternal sensitivity and child engagement) but also captured unique features of parent-child interactions.
Measures of respeto related to positive maternal and child behaviors, including maternal sensitivity and cognitive stimulation and child engagement and lack of negativity. Furthermore, PCA and CAO showed high correspondence within dyads and were correlated with mothers’ and children’s amount and diversity of words. Specifically, respeto related to mothers’ and toddlers’ language production and discourse during the interaction, and explained unique variance in language variables above standard ratings of mother-child interaction. Thus, mothers provided children with high quality language during the play session, while also expressing their authority. Reciprocally, children complied with their mothers’ requests in the context of high language production. This is the first effort to document a culturally salient aspect of dyadic interaction in Mexican immigrant mothers and young children and to show that respeto relates to language use during mother-child interactions.

Authors

• Margaret O'Brien Caughy, University of Georgia
  Presenting Author

• Catherine S Tamis-Lemonda, New York University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Raul Rojas, University of Texas at Dallas
  Non-Presenting Author

• Roger Bakeman, Georgia State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lauren B. Adamson, Georgia State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Daniel Frank Pacheco, University of Texas at Dallas
  Non-Presenting Author

• Margaret Tresch Owen, University of Texas at Dallas
  Non-Presenting Author

• Katharine Suma, University of Georgia
  Non-Presenting Author

• Amy Pace, University of Washington
  Non-Presenting Author