Reminiscing Goals and Behavior as Predictors of Child Psychological Functioning

Research has shown links between parent-child emotion reminiscing and socio-emotional outcomes, yet little research has investigated why parents talk about emotions with their children and how this relates to children’s development. The purpose of this study was to explore how parents’ self-reported goals and observed behavior in emotion reminiscing predict children’s psychological functioning. Recruited from both clinical and community settings in Australia, 54 children aged 8–12-years old engaged in an emotion reminiscing conversation task with their parent. Conversations were coded on emotion and elaborative quality. Parents reported their reminiscing goals using the Caregiver Reminiscing Scale-Revised (CRS-R), and both parent and child reported on the child’s psychological functioning. After including associated covariates, six hierarchical regression models were conducted to assess for unique associations of parents’ goals and behavior with each of the child’s psychological functioning indicators. Child-reported internalizing difficulties (C-INT) were predicted by peer relationship goals, whereas parent-reported internalizing (p-INT) and externalizing difficulties (p-EXT) were uniquely predicted by behavior control goals. Emotion comprehension was uniquely predicted by memory skill goals, and cognitive errors were uniquely predicted by children’s emotion exploration during emotion reminiscing. Rumination was not uniquely predicted by reminiscing goals or behavior. This study highlights the importance of considering parents’ emotion reminiscing goals: for future longitudinal research, and in reminiscing interventions for children with mental health difficulties.<p></p>