Maternal mind-mindedness and children’s school readiness: A longitudinal study of developmental processes.

Abstract

This study aimed to test a 5-wave sequential mediation model linking maternal mind-mindedness during infancy to children’s school readiness in kindergarten through a serial mediation involving child language and effortful control in toddlerhood and the preschool years. Among a sample of 204 mother–child dyads, we assessed maternal mind-mindedness when children were aged 1 year, child expressive vocabulary at age 2, effortful control at ages 3 and 4, and finally cognitive school readiness in kindergarten. The results corroborated the model, suggesting that the prospective association between early mind-mindedness and later cognitive school readiness was entirely mediated by the proposed sequence of mediators, all of which were necessary to account for this longitudinal association. These findings suggest that the potential of parental mind-mindedness to support children’s cognitive development may have been underestimated, and that its putative positive influence may take the form of a developmental cascade unfolding during the preschool years and entailing the acquisition of basic skills that serve as building blocks for further learning and development.

Maternal Mentalization and Behavior Under Stressful Contexts: The Moderating Roles of Prematurity and Household Chaos

“…Maternal mentalization is considered an important precursor of various aspects of infants' cognitive and social development. Online maternal mentalization during infancy has been positively associated with children's language acquisition in toddlerhood (Laranjo & Bernier, ), executive functioning (Bernier, Carlson, Deschênes, & Matte‐Gagné, ), school readiness in preschool (Bernier et al., ), and theory of mind development (e.g., Devine & Hughes, ; Kirk et al., ; Meins et al., ). Furthermore, high prenatal (offline) as well as postnatal (online) maternal mentalization predicts lower levels of internalizing and externalizing behaviors in toddlerhood (Meins, Centifanti, Fernyhough, & Fishburn, ; Smaling, Huijbregts, van der Heijden, van Goozen, & Swaab, ), suggesting that maternal mentalization can buffer against the development of conduct problems (e.g., Hughes, Aldercotte, & Foley, ).…”

Non‐Attuned Mind‐Mindedness, Infant Negative Affect, and Emotional Availability: Assessing Mind‐Mindedness during the Still‐Face Paradigm

“…Few studies have examined associations between sensitivity and non‐attuned comments, with evidence limited to this single sample. Most studies do not report on non‐attuned comments at all, as they are very infrequent and most mothers do not make any (Bernier, McMahon, & Perrier, ; Easterbrooks, Crossman, Caruso, Raskin, & Miranda‐Julian, ; Licata et al., ; McMahon, Camberis, Berry, & Gibson, ). Meins et al.…”

“…() explored how various categories of mind‐mindedness related to different types of infant behavior, few studies subsequently have considered mind‐mindedness in the context of real‐time infant behavior. Mind‐mindedness is believed to be independent of child characteristics including parent reports of infant temperament (Meins et al., ) and child cognitive and verbal ability (Bernier et al., ; Meins et al., ). This study sought to make a novel contribution by exploring transactional relations between maternal mind‐mindedness (MM) and infant negative affect across the SFP.…”

“…It is theorized that caregivers modulate infant negative affect on a moment by moment basis (Moore et al., ; Taipale, ). While there is recent evidence that higher MM in infancy predicts more optimal self‐regulation in preschool aged children (Bernier et al., ), there is currently no evidence that mind‐related speech, particularly emotion labeling, may influence the infant's emotion regulation capacity during the first year of life. We sought to examine the potentially regulating role of mind‐related comments during the SFP—that is whether infants whose mothers were more mind‐minded in the early episodes (appropriately naming the child's emotional states) would show less negative affect as the procedure unfolded.…”

Parental Embodied Mentalizing and its Relation to Mind‐Mindedness, Sensitivity, and Attachment Security

“…Maternal mind‐mindedness has been shown to predict various positive aspects of children's development, including attachment security (e.g., Arnott & Meins, ; Laranjo, Bernier, & Meins, ; Lundy, ; Meins et al., , ), executive abilities (Bernier, Carlson, & Whipple, ; Bernier, McMahon, & Perrier, ), early language abilities (Bernier et al., ; Meins, Fernyhough, Arnott, Leekam, & de Rosnay, ), theory of mind (Kirk et al., ; Laranjo, Bernier, Meins, & Carlson, , ; Meins et al., ), emotion understanding (Centifanti, Meins, & Fernyhough, ), and in children from low socioeconomic status backgrounds fewer behavioral difficulties (Meins, Centifanti, Fernyhough, & Fishburn, ) and higher school attainment (Meins, Fernyhough, & Centifanti, ).…”