Co-constructing the Past: Examining Mother- and Father-Child Narratives About Past Events Involving Pain versus Sadness
Date
2019-08-26
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Abstract
Background. Parent-child reminiscing about past events creates an influential sociolinguistic context within which children’s development occurs. Parents differ dramatically in their reminiscing styles, whereas some parents are highly elaborative (i.e., they use open-ended detailed questions) and focus on talking about emotions, other parents are repetitive and emphasize factual information. Elaborative reminiscing has been linked to more optimal developmental outcomes. No studies have examined how parent-children reminiscing about past pain compares to other stressful experiences (i.e., sadness, fear), and how parent-children reminiscing about past pain might be linked to children’s socio-emotional skills. This study was the first to examine the association between parent-child reminiscing about past pain and children’s prosocial acts to pain-related distress in others as well as overall children’s socio-emotional functioning. Methods. One hundred and sixteen 4-year old children (54% girls) and their parents (49% mothers) completed a structured narrative elicitation task wherein they reminisced about a unique past event involving pain, fear, and sadness. Children then witnessed a confederate pretending to be in pain (i.e., hurt fingers and a knee). Children’s prosocial responses and parent-child narratives about past pain were coded using established coding schemes based on the developmental psychology literature. Results. Parent-children narratives about pain were characterized by less emotion-laden and more coping and pain-related words as compared to sadness or fearful narratives. Parents, who used open-ended questions, provided new information, and talked about emotions and coping when talking about past events involving pain, had children who exhibited more prosocial acts and concern in response to other’s pain and had higher parent-reported levels of empathy. Discussion. Parent-children reminiscing about past pain differs from reminiscing about other types of distressing events (e.g., involving sadness or fear) and is linked to children’s socio-emotional skills. This highlights a possibility of differential socialization of pain. Parent-child reminiscing is amenable to intervention and offers a promising avenue for pediatric pain management interventions.
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Keywords
pain, sadness, fear, children, parents, reminiscing, prosocial behaviour, empathy
Citation
Pavlova, M. (2019). Co-constructing the Past: Examining Mother- and Father-Child Narratives About Past Events Involving Pain versus Sadness (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.