Mother-child dialogue about emotions and preschoolers' emotional competence

Conversations about emotions between preschoolers and their mothers constitute an important form of shared meaning. As groundwork for a child's developing theory of mind, such conversations are expected to predict aspects of children's emotional competence. Forty-seven preschoolers and their mothers looked at a picturebook in which characters displayed emotions on almost every page; although the emotions were central to the plot, it was up to each mother and child (dyad) whether to discuss them or not. Conversations were transcribed and coded for frequency and function of emotional language as well as for specific emotions to which both mother and child referred. In general, mothers talked more than their children did about emotions, yet the frequency of emotional utterances that served as simple comments or to guide the other's behavior did not differ for mothers and children. As expected, patterns of emotional language of mothers and children were related to indices of positive social-emotional development.