Cognitive response repertoires to child noncompliance by mothers of aggressive boys.

Abstract

Cognitive response repertoires to videotaped child noncompliance episodes were examined in mothers of aggressive (MAs) and nonaggressive 4-6-year-old boys. Mothers provided open-ended solutions to three subtypes of child noncompliance under conditions of time pressure, or after they waited for 15 s to consider alternatives. Solutions were coded as assistance/facilitation, coercion, deference, or explanation/clarification. Compared with controls, MAs offered fewer explanation/clarification responses, more coercive responses, and fewer unique solutions during pressured responding. Two to 6 weeks later, mothers were videotaped while participating with their sons in a challenging block building task. Maternal responses to the vignettes predicted conflict escalation during block building, even after rates of concurrent and past child noncompliance were partialled out. Implications for parent-training models are considered.