Parent-child Interaction And Children's Theory Of Mind Development

Theory of mind (TOM) and parent-child interaction are two hot issues in the research field of development psychology. This study tries to explore the relationship between TOM and parent-child interaction through an observation of parent-child play. One aim is to explore the social origin of the difference of children's TOM, the other is to provide some advice for parents to facilitate their children's TOM effectively in their families.Fifty-three 3-5-year-olds children and their mothers are involved in this study. Children are asked to finish four TOM tasks and mothers fill in parenting style questionnaire separately. Children and their parents take part in the parent-child play together and their interactions are videorecorded. Parent-child play is coded for 5 aspects: participative style, emotion communication, mental state utterances, non-mental state utterances and mother's parenting style. The results indicate that:(1) After control of age, children's TOM is significantly related to their initiatively joining play, suggesting play of participative style and mother's teaching play.(2) After control of age, there is a positive correlation between children's TOM and their sharing positive affect. Yet we don't find the same result between children's TOM and their mothers' sharing positive affect.(3) After control of age, children's TOM is significantly related to the use of their mental state utterances and their mothers'.(4) After control of age, children's TOM is significantly related to the non-mental state utterances on specific categories , such as links to the life and the sum of the non-mental state utterances. But controlling of the sum of the mental state utterances, this relation is not existed. It possible that the non-mental state utterances affect the development of children's TOM indirectly, for example through mental state utterances.(5) The result of mothers' parenting style questionnaire indicates that children's TOM is significantly related to mothers' severe punishing after control of age. The result of observation shows a positive correlation between children's TOM and mothers' warmth and understanding. We think that the difference is due to parent-child play is a special situation whereas questionnaire reflects the generality.In a word, we find that children's TOM is significantly related to many aspects in parent-child interaction. Thought this study, we know parent-child interaction is one of the social origin of the difference of children's TOM, parents can improve their children's TOM by changing their participative style, emotion communication, mental state utterances, non-mental state utterances and mother's parenting style.