Background: Breastfeeding and weaning are strongly connected with infant–mother mutual autonomy, and hence are good touchstones to examine the characteristics of the mother–child relationship. Comparison of the weaning practice gives a framework to understand characteristics of the mother–infant relationship. Objective: The purpose of this study was to compare three industrialised countries concerning the relationship between feeding and weaning practices and its reasons, mother's perception of child care, and of breast milk and formula. Methods: A questionnaire study on weaning practice was conducted for 310 Japanese, 756 French, and 222 American mothers with 4- to 20-month-old infants. Results: French mothers expected and had accomplished weaning at an earlier age of the infant, compared to Japanese and American mothers. Perceived insufficiency of breast milk was the leading reason for the termination of breastfeeding for Japanese mothers at the earlier stages, whereas back to work was the more important reason for French mothers. Japanese mothers were more negative in their image of themselves as mothers, whereas French mothers felt more burdened by child-care. Japanese mothers who terminated breastfeeding because of perceived breast milk insufficiency were also those who were less motivated to breastfeed. Conclusion: Weaning is a significant framework to interpret cultural differences in mother–infant relationship. The perceived insufficiency is interpreted as a solution of conflict between the social pressure to breastfeed and its burden.

This study analyses the interface between children's culture and their development as they learn to perform the daily activities of eating and toileting in culturally appropriate ways.Thirty-three Japaneee and 36 French children 12-31 months of age and adults' interventions were observed in public day care centms in Tokyo and in Paris. W i t h i n the same time frame, a survey was conducted among the adults (parents and nursery staff) to examine their developmental exjwctations for children.Observations reveal differences between children's learning in the two countries. Toilet treining begins at a later age in Japan and is learned more quickly, whaeas learning to eat alone be@m e& than in France but is acquired at a slower pace. The analysis of the surveys shows some discrepancy between adults' conceptions and actual interactions.In both countries, the developmental decrease in physical intervention com?sponded with the pmgress of the child, but adult interventions and strategies varied according to the different cultures. The presence of Japanese adults is greater than thoae in France, but this does not mean that they intervene physically more ofien. Finally, instrumental independence begins slightly earlier in Japan.Key words: Child autonomy, Japanese and French children comparison, eating behaviour, toilet training, adult intervention, adults' conceptions of child development.Studies relating child development to adult knowledge of it reveal differences as a function of the country and the culture. some words, and distinguish the objects in pictures earlier than Costa Rican mothers, but German mothers locate the items to babble and sit alone later than Costa Rican mothers. DeVries and DeVries (19n) studied toilet training in East Africa, and report that adult conceptions of it and its practice are markedly different from the current maturational readiness method recommended in America. The 'Dig0 people believe that infants can learn soon after birth, and they begin motor

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In order to explain the cultural differences reported in the results of false-belief tasks, we attempted to verify the 'task bias hypothesis' suggested by certain studies (e.g. Tardif et al. (2004). Journal of Child Language, 31, 779-800; Rubio-Fernandez & Geurts (2013). Psychological Science, 24(1), 27-33. doi 10.1177/0956797612447819). At the same time, we aimed to observe the theory of mind (ToM) ability of infants and young children under the age of three in verbal communication. To this end, we propose a new protocol to test young children's ToM ability, with particular attention paid to the linguistic aspect of the task. This original disambiguation task using proper nouns (first names) was tested on a total of 32 children aged between 16 and 38 months, in France and Japan. The results revealed that after the age of 30 months children begin to correctly interpret nouns while simultaneously taking into account their partner's knowledge (50% of the French and 29% of the Japanese children were successful), whereas this remains difficult for younger children (no child under 30 months was successful). The analysis of error types has shown that 'memory bias' was dominant in younger children in particular and 'association bias' was rarely observed across all ages. Given that the results of French and Japanese children did not differ significantly, we assume that this new task design could minimise the influence of cultural difference caused by the characteristics of different languages.