The what and how of parenting: Associations between mother and toddler behavior in a wait task

• In Event: Poster Session 14
  In Poster Session: PS 14 Topic - Social, Emotional, Personality

Abstract

Parents contribute to young children’s development of self-regulation of emotion (Eisenberg et al., 1998; Morris et al., 2017), including helping them shift from reliance on parents to supporting their own attempts to self-regulate (Brownell & Kopp, 2010). Evidence linking parenting behavior with young children’s strategy use usually involve continuous interaction tasks, such as toy clean-up or problem-solving (Landry et al., 2000; Mermelshtine, 2017). But often parents need children to wait for something they want while a parent is busy with something else. Less is known about associations between parent and toddler behavior in the context of such waiting.
We observed mothers and their 24-month-olds during a task in which mothers told their toddlers to wait to open a gift until the mother’s work was done, a type of delayed reward task often used to study child self-regulation. We focused on the extent to which: 1) toddler behavior accounted for how often mothers oriented away from work and toward the toddler, and 2) maternal directives (commands and prohibitions) and structuring (helping child self-regulate) accounted for how often children initiated a target strategy. Specifically, we were interested in the preferable strategy in wait tasks—distraction, shifting away from a desired object and becoming involved in play. We also investigated the extent to which maternal interventions accompanied by positive emotional expressions contributed to toddlers’ use of distraction.
Participants were 110 24-month-olds (52% female; Mage = 24.38 months, SD = 1.31) and their mothers (Mage = 31.47 years, SD = 5.48) from economically strained rural and semi-rural families. The mothers told their toddlers they had to wait to open a gift until mothers completed their work (questionnaires). Separate teams coded the 8-minute task for: (a) maternal orientation, (b) maternal structuring (i.e., attempts to harness toddlers’ emerging self-regulation) and directing (i.e., commands without trying to guide toddlers’ engagement in self-regulation), (c) maternal and child positive and negative emotion expression, and (d) child strategy use and disruptive behaviors. We analyzed the frequencies of bouts of behaviors (continuous seconds of a behavior). Reliability estimates for all variables were in the acceptable range (Cohen’s k range = .70 to .94).
Hierarchical multiple regressions (see Table 1) revealed that more frequent toddler disruptive behavior and bids to the mother, but not negative emotion nor distraction, accounted for more frequent maternal orientation toward toddlers. Once mothers oriented (see Table 2), more structuring, but not directing, accounted for more frequent use of distraction in toddlers. Maternal positive emotion toward toddlers trended toward significance and did not interact with structuring to predict toddler distraction.
We discuss the important distinction between parental structuring and directives in fostering the use of distraction in such young children. We also discuss findings that suggest mothers did not react to their toddler’s negative emotion and may just wait to see if their toddlers can manage on their own unless they become disruptive. Furthermore, the muted effect of maternal positive emotion may indicate mothers avoided encouraging interaction with their toddlers.

Authors

• Samantha English, Pennsylvania State University, University Park
  Presenting Author

• Emily N. Ledonne
  Non-Presenting Author

• Pamela M Cole, Pennsylvania State University, University Park
  Non-Presenting Author