Low‐Income Mothers' Conversations About Emotions and Their Children's Emotional Competence

TLDR

In low‑income families, maternal emotional language is believed to influence children’s emotional competence. This study examined how low‑income mothers’ conversations about emotions relate to their preschoolers’ emotional understanding. Researchers videotaped 45 mother‑child pairs while they read a wordless picture book, coded maternal and child emotional language (unelaborated comments, explanations, empathy statements) and children’s questions, and then assessed the children’s emotional expression, situation knowledge, and role‑taking in a separate interview. Mothers’ empathy‑related statements predicted children’s emotional situation knowledge, while explanations of causes and consequences uniquely predicted role‑taking, and overall there were few correlations between mothers’ and children’s emotional talk.

Abstract

Abstract This study examined the linkage between low‐income mothers' conversations about emotions and their children's understanding of emotion. Forty‐five low‐income preschoolers and their mothers were videotaped while viewing a wordless picture book designed to elicit talk about emotions. Three maternal and child emotional language behaviors were coded from the videotapes: (a) unelaborated comments about emotions; (b) explanations about the causes and consequences of emotions; and (c) empathy‐related statements. The children's questions about emotions were also coded. In a separate interview, the preschoolers were administered tasks that assessed emotional expression knowledge, emotional situation knowledge, and emotional role‐taking. The results revealed that emotional situation knowledge was positively predicted by mothers' empathy‐related statements. Mothers' explanations about the causes and consequences of emotions were uniquely related to emotional role‐taking ability. There were very few correlations between the mothers' and children's talk about emotions. Results are discussed in terms of the functional significance of mothers' emotional language for young children's emotional competence.