Community and Clinical Perspectives on the Development of Children’s Committed Compliance to the Maternal Agenda

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

All three papers in this symposium address the question of when and how young children come to internalize the maternal agenda, including the need to gain self-regulation skills, and comply with maternal wishes. Each paper relies on standard clean-up methods where mother and/or child are asked to put away toys they have been playing with. Paper 1 reports on 218 community mothers and their children at 18, 30, 42, 54 and 72 months. Child temperament (effortful control and fearfulness) and maternal assertive control are shown to have somewhat unique influences on each of three child ‘committed compliance’ groups: (1)low-increasing; (2) high stable; and (3) high increasing. Paper 2 reports on 102 community families (mothers, fathers and children) observed in longitudinal perspective from infancy through 6-years of age. Measures include, AQS attachment, parents’ assertive control, and child temperament, modeled in relation to children’s committed compliance at 5.5 and 6.5 years of age. Stronger findings for mothers (than fathers) are reported. Results include the observation that difficult children who received gentle, non-assertive control showed more internalization than their easy peers. Paper 3 reports on a RCT investigation comparing two interventions aimed at preventing child maltreatment, with results reported for 50 families mothers and their children aged circa 2-years at intake and 2.5 years at end-of-treatment. Results reveal an increase in maternal gentle guidance, in both treatment groups, during clean-up task observations, but only for male (not female) children.

Sub Unit

• Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Chair

• Howard Steele, New School for Social Research

Individual Presentations

• Heterogeneity in Developmental Trajectories of Committed Compliance: Antecedents and Outcomes - Presenting Author: Xiaoye Xu, University of Southern California; Non-Presenting Author: Tracy L Spinrad, Arizona State University; Non-Presenting Author: Shuyang Dong, Universiteit Utrecht; Non-Presenting Author: Nancy Eisenberg, Arizona State University

• The Developmental Cascade from Attachment to Parenting to Internalization of Rules: Moderation by Child Difficulty - Presenting Author: Danming An, Lehigh University; Non-Presenting Author: Grazyna Kochanska, University of Iowa

• Increases in maternal gentle guidance following participation in interventions for mothers and their toddlers - Presenting Author: Audrey Kucer, The New School; Non-Presenting Author: Miriam Steele, New School for Social Research; Non-Presenting Author: Howard Steele, New School for Social Research; Non-Presenting Author: Kathryn LeNeave, New School for Social Research; Non-Presenting Author: Anne Murphy, Montefiore Medical Center