Research Of Association Between Children’s Initiatives And Mothers’ Responses In Their Interaction In The Second To Third Year Of Life

According to Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of development and Brofenbrenner’s ecological systems theory, parent-child interaction plays an important role on the development of children. In practice, the parent-child interaction in the first three year of life is paid more attention in the early education by governments of many countries. With the increasing national income, more and more parents would like to buy toys for their children under three years of age. However, in the daily observation, there lot of parents who are at loss when interacting with their children. So it is necessary to research the parent-child interaction.This study used non-participant and longitudinal observation to collect videos about interaction of 6 children (5 girls,1 boys) and their mothers in Shanghai when the children are at their age of 13th,15th,18th,21th,25th,29th,34th months. The mother-children interaction were observed when they are playing toys. The 6 children and their mothers were given the same toys. The study used micro-analysis and case longitudinal method, designing coding list to analyze mothers’ responses and children’s initiatives. Based on these coding data, the study reported the change of children’s initiatives and mother responses, as well as their relationship, In addition, child S2 are compared with S3 from the content and ways of mother-child interaction. The_research conclusions are as follows:(1) Children verbal initiatives including active exploration, social interest and self-assertion have increased with age growth. "Visual focused attention" belonging to active exploration changes in the quantity and quality with age. Nonverbal behavior is decreased along with the age growth; There are ups and downs in nonverbal self-expression.(2) Mother’s cognitive support and emotional support showed a downward trend in general. The change of cognitive support appears repeatedly, probably influenced by the play materials. Mothers’ support of need and motivation is increasing with the age of children.(3) Children’s social interest has a negative significant correlation with active exploration, while children’s social interest has a significant positive correlation with mother’s cognitive support. Children’s active exploration has significant positive correlation with self-expression, as well as with mothers’ support of need and motivation. There is a significant positive correlation between mothers’support of need and motivation and children’s self-expression.(4) The main response types of S3’s mother include:demonstration and guidance, to encourage independent thought; set the playfull scene; cooperative game and jointly finishing; rich emotion and tone of exaggeration. While S2’s mother has such response styles:more directive language, a higher degree of control; fewer responses to children’s behavior, much own initiatives; results oriented and speech lacked of richness and joy; Comparing S2’s and S3’s mothers’responses, differences are mainly reflected in focus, interactive content and response style.