Kårstad S B, Kvello O, Wichstrøm L, Berg-Nielsen T S
Department of Psychology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway.
Child Care Health Dev. 2014 May;40(3):346-53. doi: 10.1111/cch.12071. Epub 2013 Apr 22.
Parents' ability to correctly perceive their child's skills has implications for how the child develops. In some studies, parents have shown to overestimate their child's abilities in areas such as IQ, memory and language. Emotion Comprehension (EC) is a skill central to children's emotion regulation, initially learned from their parents. In this cross-sectional study we first tested children's EC and then asked parents to estimate the child's performance. Thus, a measure of accuracy between child performance and parents' estimates was obtained. Subsequently, we obtained information on child and parent factors that might predict parents' accuracy in estimating their child's EC.
Child EC and parental accuracy of estimation was tested by studying a community sample of 882 4-year-olds who completed the Test of Emotion Comprehension (TEC). The parents were instructed to guess their children's responses on the TEC. Predictors of parental accuracy of estimation were child actual performance on the TEC, child language comprehension, observed parent-child interaction, the education level of the parent, and child mental health.
Ninety-one per cent of the parents overestimated their children's EC. On average, parents estimated that their 4-year-old children would display the level of EC corresponding to a 7-year-old. Accuracy of parental estimation was predicted by child high performance on the TEC, child advanced language comprehension, and more optimal parent-child interaction.
Parents' ability to estimate the level of their child's EC was characterized by a substantial overestimation. The more competent the child, and the more sensitive and structuring the parent was interacting with the child, the more accurate the parent was in the estimation of their child's EC.
父母正确感知孩子技能的能力对孩子的发展方式具有影响。在一些研究中，父母在智商、记忆和语言等方面表现出高估孩子能力的情况。情绪理解（EC）是儿童情绪调节的核心技能，最初是从父母那里习得的。在这项横断面研究中，我们首先测试了儿童的情绪理解能力，然后让父母估计孩子的表现。由此获得了孩子表现与父母估计之间的准确性衡量指标。随后，我们获取了有关儿童和父母因素的信息，这些因素可能预测父母在估计孩子情绪理解能力方面的准确性。
通过对882名4岁儿童的社区样本进行研究来测试儿童的情绪理解能力和父母估计的准确性，这些儿童完成了情绪理解测试（TEC）。要求父母猜测孩子在TEC上的回答。父母估计准确性的预测因素包括孩子在TEC上的实际表现、孩子的语言理解能力、观察到的亲子互动、父母的教育水平以及孩子的心理健康状况。
91%的父母高估了孩子的情绪理解能力。平均而言，父母估计他们4岁的孩子会表现出相当于7岁孩子的情绪理解水平。孩子在TEC上的高表现、孩子较高的语言理解能力以及更优化的亲子互动可预测父母估计的准确性。
父母估计孩子情绪理解能力水平的特点是存在大量高估。孩子能力越强，父母与孩子互动越敏感且有条理，父母对孩子情绪理解能力的估计就越准确。
