Expanding and Extending the Role Reversal Construct in Early Childhood

Role reversal or boundary dissolution (BD) refers to the breakdown of expected parent-child roles and poses risk to development. Although retrospective reports in adulthood demonstrates that the emotional aspects of BD negatively influence self-concept, examination of BD in early childhood typically focuses on BD broadly as a reversal of parent-child roles rather than isolating the emotional aspects of BD. In addition, empirical work has yet to distinguish between mother and child engagement in BD despite the strong theoretical emphasis on this distinction.

We coded (N = 110 mother-child dyads) mother and child (age 3-6 years) engagement in role reversal during play and in emotional BD during mother-child reminiscing discussions to isolate emotional BD.

Child engagement in BD was associated across the contexts of play and mother-child emotional conversations whereas there was no association between maternal engagement in BD across these contexts. We examined associations between mother and child engagement in emotional BD and the extent to which child self-concept was consistent. Maternal engagement in emotional BD during reminiscing emerged as a significant predictor of less consistency in child self-concept in regression models including child engagement in emotional BD, role reversal in play, and child age.

Results provide empirical support for critical components of BD theory (e.g., salience of emotional BD, distinguishing parent versus child engagement in BD, impact on self-concept) and the measurement of these aspects of BD in future studies.