Relationship of parent-child communication to child's exploratory behavior and self-differentiation.

In a study that investigated the relationship between patterns of acknowledgment in parent--child communication and the child's exploratory behavior and self-differentiation, subjects included 77 healthy perschool children between the ages of 3 years, 3 months and 4 years, 9 months and their mothers. Data on parent--child communication were collected in the home setting during a 30-minute observation in which mothers and children were engaged in a series of semi-structured play activities. Maternal responses to their children's assertions were coded as nonevaluative recognition, positive recognition, negative recognition, direction, or nonrecognition. A score on parent--child communication was the ratio of parental nonevaluative recognition and positive recognition combined to parental negative recognition, direction, and nonrecognition combined. Testing of the children on exploratory behavior and self-differentiation was done on an individual basis in their respective nursery schools. A low positive correlation (r = .237, p less than .05) between parent--child communication and children's self-differentiation was observed. Contrary to expectation, a slight negative correlation (r = -.101, p greater than .05) between parent--child communication and children's exploratory behavior was observed. Auxiliary analyses of the data, taking into consideration the child's sex, revealed that the negative relationship between parent--child-communication and children's exploratory behavior was characteristic of the mother-daughter dyads only (r = -.325, p = .08). A correlation of .078 (p greater than .05 was obtained for mother--son communication with boys' exploratory behavior.