Moniek Zeegers<\/a> at the Research Institute of Child Development and Education in the Netherlands, \u00a0measured emotion regulation via \u201chigh-frequency heart rate variation\u201d (HRV) \u2013 the variation in duration between subsequent heartbeats. Previous research has shown two things. First, a higher baseline HRV in toddlers is related to better regulation of emotions, as well as a more general alertness and responsiveness to the environment. Second, in a socially stressful situation, such as meeting a stranger or encountering a non-responsive face, HRV goes down; a larger drop is associated with stronger coping with the challenging situation.<\/p>\nThe researchers found that mind-mindedness in both mothers and fathers is linked to improved emotion regulation in 12-month-old babies. But they also found differences between mothers and fathers in how mind-mindedness influences children.<\/p>\n
For mothers, stronger mind-mindedness when the baby was 4 months old predicted more positive HRV in the baby at 12 months (higher baseline, more decline in a situation with a stranger). For fathers, there was no such link, but there was a link between a father\u2019s mind-mindedness later, at 12 months, and HRV (both measures) at 12 months. This may reflect the fact that mothers tend to be more involved in caring for infants earlier on, so the mother\u2019s influence displays itself earlier, on average.<\/p>\n
The researchers found that the baby\u2019s heart rate variation at four months did not predict a parent\u2019s mind-mindedness at 12 months. Judging by other research, the child\u2019s temperament would be expected to influence parenting, but perhaps in the case of a child\u2019s ability to regulate emotions, this influence takes more than one year to exhibit itself.<\/p>\n
The researchers found that measures of mind-mindedness and measures of parenting quality at 12 months correlated for fathers, but not for mothers. They were not able to explain this finding; they suggest that the problem might be the rather coarse measure of parenting quality used in the research.<\/p>\n
Zeegers and her team recommend looking further at the longer-term influence of parental mind-mindedness on child cognitive and social development. Other research projects have started to show links between parental mind-mindedness and a child\u2019s ability to interpret other people\u2019s behavior. Maternal mind-mindedness predicts a child\u2019s better working memory at 18 months and better management of conflict and impulses at 26 months. Paternal mind-mindedness predicts a child\u2019s ability to control impulses at 18 months.<\/p>\n
Another aspect that needs further work is how mothers\u2019 and fathers\u2019 mind-mindedness interact with each other during coparenting. In coparenting, one parent can strengthen or compensate for the other, so their influences become mixed.<\/p>\n
This study took place in the Netherlands and involved 116 mothers and fathers, with measurements at four months and 12 months. The data were drawn from a larger, longer-term longitudinal program. The research is unusual in that it measures both mothers and fathers.<\/p>\n
Mind-mindedness was measured at four months by recording a five-minute parent-child free play session. At 12 months, the session lasted 10 minutes. All the comments by the parents were classified as either being directed at the child\u2019s mental state or not. If so, the statements were categorized as cognitions (e.g., \u201cyou remembered this from the zoo\u201d), likes and dislikes (e.g. \u201cyou don\u2019t like this rattle\u201d) or emotions (e.g., \u201cyou\u2019re all excited to play with these toys\u201d). After this, each comment was coded as \u2018appropriate\u2019 or \u2018non-attuned\u2019 to the child\u2019s mental state.<\/p>\n
The heart rate variation was measured at baseline and then in a stranger situation \u2013 an unfamiliar man approaches the baby when sitting in front of the mother, talks to the baby for 30 seconds, and then picks the baby up for 30 seconds.<\/p>\n
Parental quality was measured at 12 months by observing the play session and scoring for parental responsiveness, intrusiveness, warmth and negativity.<\/p>\n
\n
References<\/h4>\n
\u00a0Zeegers MAJ, de Vente W, Nikoli\u0107 M, Majdand\u017ei\u0107 M, B\u00f6gels SM & Colonnesi C (2018), Mothers\u2019 and fathers\u2019 mind-mindedness influences physiological emotion regulation of infants across the first year of life<\/a>, Developmental Science 21.6<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Both the mother\u2019s and father\u2019s mind-mindedness when a baby is four months and 12 months old influence the way the baby manages emotions at 12 months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":8314,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5773,438],"tags":[28,35,452,36,27,267,455],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/childandfamilyblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8312"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/childandfamilyblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/childandfamilyblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/childandfamilyblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/childandfamilyblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8312"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/childandfamilyblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19218,"href":"https:\/\/childandfamilyblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8312\/revisions\/19218"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/childandfamilyblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/childandfamilyblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/childandfamilyblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/childandfamilyblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}