Family interactions in public: Parent-child distance and touching

Abstract

In an effort to extend the study of parent-child interaction to naturalistic settings, 207 families were observed in parks by observers who used scaled maps to record parent-child distances and touching behavior. Generally, parent-child distance increased and touching decreased as child age increased. The interactional behaviors of boys and girls and mothers and fathers were far more similar than different. Finally, the family context in which parent-child dyads interacted had “second-order” effects on their behavior. The presence of other children in the family reduced closeness between parent and child, whereas the presence of a second parent altered the behavior of individual parents without diminishing a child's experience of parental closeness. These findings support the value of studying parent-child interaction within its family context using a naturalistic approach.