Next time your preschooler has a play date or goes to a friend’s birthday party, you may have your own relationship with her to credit her many friends. Scientists have known for some time now that there is a link between attachments and the quality of a friendship, bu
t could never pinpoint why or how. A new study found that a secure mother child relationship can help preschoolers form closer friendships.
The study, conducted by the University of Illinois (U of I) and published in Child Development, found that children with a secure maternal attachment form closer friendships in early school years for several reasons. Nancy McElwin, lead author of the study explains that children with an emotionally open, secure mother-child relationship tend to develop a less biased perception of others which ultimately promotes positive relationships.
Researchers examined mother-child attachment at age 3 as well as how openly moms and kids expressed their emotions at age 4. The constituents of the study were 1,071 children from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development.
Children were then reassessed at 4 and ½ years of age and again upon starting the first grade. Researchers were looking for what they coined as hostile attribution bias when given a hypothetical situation in which a peer did something negative to the child even though the motive for the behavior was up for interpretation. Children expressed this hostile bias when they believed the motive for the hypothetical behavior was intentionally hurtful.
Mothers and teachers were also asked to provide their own assessments of the child’s competencies as well as quality of friendships. Pathways to quality friendships stemmed from close mother-child attachment, particularly by showing open emotional communication and better language capabilities. Essentially, when kids feel comfortable talking about their emotions, even the negative ones, it leads to better friendships. McElwin went on to explain: “"This finding suggests that the way children interpret other people’s behavior may begin to develop in the context of early relationships in the family, and these interpretations may be important for a child’s ability to get along with friends later on."
Tags: mother child bond
This entry was posted
on Friday, February 20th, 2009 at 2:52 pm and is filed under Baby Parenting.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.
