Maternal Mediation Research Articles

Maternal Mediation on Children’s Smartphone Overdependence: A Moderated Moderation Model of Mother-Child Communication and Children’s Gender

Objectives: This study examined the effects of maternal mediation and mother-child communication on children’s smartphone overdependence. It also explored the moderated moderation effect of mother-child communication and children’s gender on the relationship between maternal mediation and children’s smartphone overdependence.Methods: A total of 411 first to third grade elementary school students and their mothers participated in this study. Mothers responded to questionnaires. Data were analyzed using multiple regression analysis with SPSS 21.0 and using model 3 in PROCESS macro version 3.4.Results: First, maternal active mediation only affected girls’ smartphone overdependence, while maternal restrictive mediation affected both boys’ and girls’ smartphone overdependence. That is, the more active mediation mothers showed, the less dependent girls were on smartphones. Moreover, the more restrictive mediation mothers showed, the less dependent both boys and girls were on smartphones. Second, problematic communication influenced both boys’ and girls’ smartphone overdependence; that is, the more problematic communication they had with their mothers, the more they depended on smartphones. Lastly, the effect of maternal active mediation on children’s smartphone overdependence was different depending on open communication and children’s gender. Specifically, its effect on children’s smartphone overdependence was greater when they communicated more openly with their mothers, and this effect was only found in the case of girls.Conclusion: This study confirmed that maternal mediation and mother-child communication are important to effectively prevent or intervene in children’s smartphone overdependence. It also suggests that prevention or intervention should be approached differently depending on children’s gender.

Effect of Maternal Factors on Problematic Smartphone Use among Elementary School Children

Mothers play a key role in ensuring their children’s healthy life. This study aimed to identify the maternal factors affecting problematic smartphone use in children. We adopted a cross-sectional descriptive design using structured questionnaires. Participants were fourth to sixth grade elementary school students in Korea (n = 184). The following maternal factors were evaluated: maternal mediation, children’s perception of mothers’ smartphone use, mother–child communication, and parenting style. Data regarding maternal factors’ effect on problematic smartphone use were analyzed by computing descriptive statistics and logistic regression analysis using SPSS Win 27.0. The results show that the maternal factors that influenced problematic smartphone use in children were maternal control over smartphone usage (odds ratio (OR) = 5.10, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.33–19.60), smartphone usage time for social network service (OR = 1.52, 95% CI: 1.10–2.01), and problematic mother–child communication (OR = 1.07, 95% CI: 1.00–1.14). Therefore, to promote appropriate smartphone use among school children, it is necessary to develop an intervention comprising maternal supervision of their children’s smartphones, guidance provision for social network service usage, and strategies for the reinforcement of positive mother–child communication.

Exposure to IPV among Children in the Child Welfare System and an Emotional-Behavioral Disability: the Role of Maternal Depression and Social Support.

This study examines the relationship between children's exposure to IPV and EBD among children involved in the child welfare system for suspected maltreatment (both substantiated and unsubstantiated). It specifically examines how children's trauma symptoms, maternal depression, and maternal social support may impact the relationship between exposure to IPV and EBD. This study uses structural equation modeling with data from the second National Survey of Child and Adolescent Wellbeing to examine the relationship between exposure to IPV and EBD among 989 children (ages 8-17) involved in the child welfare system. Moderated mediation was employed to examine whether children's trauma symptoms mediate the relationship between IPV exposure and EBD and whether differences in maternal depression and social support impact such mediation effect. Child trauma symptoms and maternal social support were significantly related to EBD. The current study highlights the relationship between children's trauma symptoms and EBD among children in the child welfare system. The study also provides preliminary evidence for maternal social support as a protective factor for children developing EBD. Implications of this research include providing interventions as well as increasing maternal social support to potentially reduce the likelihood of children developing EBD.

Maternal mediation strategies during interaction with toddlers- a comparison of dyads with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and dyads with typical development (TD)

IntroductionDuring interactions with toddlers, mothers use various mediation strategies to encourage mutual play. Such mediation skills play an important role in the development of toddlers’ communicative skills. Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) introduces challenges to this interaction.ObjectivesTo study the use of maternal strategies during interaction with ASD and TD toddlers at early lexical levels.MethodsNine ASD and fifteen TD dyads participated. Toddlers were matched by lexical levels. The mean age in the ASD was 31.5 months and in TD - 17 months. Each dyad was video-recorded three times, during naturalistic interaction. Mothers’ verbal mediation strategies were divided into five main communicative categories.Results1. Exact repetition of toddler’s utterances was similarly used and increased in both groups across the three visits (f (2,44)=3.77, p< 0.05). 2. Significant differences were found between the two groups regarding strategies associated with control of the interaction eg mothers of toddlers with ASD (MASD) made more frequent attempts to redirect their child’s attention (F (1,22)= 74.56, p<0.01). 3. MASD had higher indices of overall talkativeness (F (1,22)= 5.43, p<0.05); use of nonverbal means (F(1,22)= 9,51, p<0.01); simultaneous use of different means of communication (F (1,22)=19.8, p<0.01).ConclusionsOur results highlight that in some respects, maternal mediation strategies reflect the child’s lexical level. However, our main finding is a distinct interaction style expressed in MASD’s elevated use of verbal and nonverbal mediation strategies. This, in hope of maintaining continuous interaction that could not be otherwise achieved due to their toddlers’ difficultiesDisclosureNo significant relationships.

Maternal Mediation in the Context of Fathers' Incarceration and Reentry

ObjectiveWe sought to develop grounded theory regarding how mothers who share children with an incarcerated father mediate between men and their offspring.BackgroundMothers' mediation can be situated at the intersection of their motherwork and their prison work. Motherwork (Collins, 1994) refers to the paid and unpaid labor that mothers on the margins do to support their families and foster their children's survival. Prison work (Codd, 2007) involves the invisible labor of supporting persons during their incarceration and reentry. A focus on maternal mediation as a proximal process that bears on justice‐involved families acknowledges the inherent tension between these domains.MethodWe conducted a secondary analysis of interview data from 16 Australian mothers who had at least one child whose father had a history of incarceration.ResultsWe identified four patterns of maternal mediation: facilitation, monitoring, constraint, and disengagement. These types connected to aspects of women's motherwork, as well as the intensity of their efforts to support children's fathers.ConclusionMediation is a form of women's prison‐motherwork, which reflects complex and shifting strategies that are influenced by children's developmental needs and preferences, mothers' feelings about children's fathers and their importance in children's lives, and time.ImplicationsWomen would benefit from having specialized support and counseling throughout their partner's (or former partner's) carceral confinement and reentry.

Maternal Mediation of Retail Food Promotions Directed at Children

The present study seeks to identify whether mothers perceive the effect of in-store food promotional strategies on food shopping behavior of children and mediate this impact by using feeding practices. Data have been collected from 473 mothers of children in the age category 4–11 years from Punjab (India). The mothers are found to use multiple feeding practices because they recognize that the use of in-store food promotional strategies have negative effects on the health of children. They use “teaching about nutrition” and “food as a reward” practices because they find rampant use of in-store food promotional strategies.

Maternal mediation as an act of privacy invasion: The association with internet addiction

No studies have considered that parental mediation could be intrusive to adolescents' privacy and could lead to an increased risk of internet addiction. By integrating communication privacy management theory and parental monitoring research, this study examines the relationships among maternal mediation, adolescents' perceptions of privacy invasion, defensive responses to privacy invasion, and internet addiction. The participants were 678 13- to 16-year-old adolescents and their mothers who participated in the study for two consecutive years. Mothers reported their use of mediation strategies at Time 1; adolescents reported their perceptions of privacy invasion in terms of internet use and their defensive responses to privacy invasion at Time 2 and their internet addiction at Time 1 and Time 2. The results indicated that maternal restrictive mediation was associated with adolescents' perceptions of privacy invasion and that perceptions of privacy invasion were associated with defensive responses, which led to increased internet addiction. Adolescent females and males showed similar relationships. The findings emphasize the importance of parents' respect for adolescents' privacy boundaries and suggest that parents should adopt more communication-based mediation strategies to regulate adolescents' internet behaviors.

Living with a chronic disease: the role of maternal mediation in the meaning-making process of their children’s Type 1 Diabetes.

In this article we present a qualitatively-driven study aimed at exploring the meaning-making processes related to the maternal elaboration of their child’s diagnosis of chronic illness. In particular, we tried to examine a specific function of this process in mediating between the mothers’ own emotional experiences and the management of their children’s illness on a daily basis. We analyzed the narratives of 21 mothers of young patients with type one diabetes mellitus (T1D), aged between 6 and 17 years, collected through the “Sense of Grip Interview”. The whole narrative corpus was analyzed using the method developed by Auerbach and Silverstein, called Hypothesis-generating research. We identified four macro-processes in which the mediation function of the maternal meaning-making process is articulated: emotional regulation, collaboration in the therapeutic management, presentation of the disease and social sharing of the disease. The mediation function can act on two different levels: an intra-personal level, by fostering maternal elaboration of the disease; and an inter-personal level, by promoting the child’s meaning making process and the actions to manage their disease, in accordance with the developmental competencies acquired by their children.

Can e-books support low SES parental mediation to enrich children’s vocabulary?

This study examines whether an e-book with a dictionary could support parents’ mediation of new words during shared book reading, more than the child’s independent reading of an e-book with and without a dictionary. The participants included 128 kindergartners and 64 mothers who were randomly divided into four groups: independent reading of the e-book with a dictionary; joint mother–child reading of the e-book without a dictionary; joint mother–child reading of the e-book with a dictionary, and independent reading of the e-book without a dictionary (control). For each target word, the dictionary presented (1) word meaning, (2) word meaning within the story context, and (3) a combined meaning. Pre- and posttests included receptive and expressive understanding of the dictionary words. E-books were read four times. Reading the e-book with a dictionary and maternal mediation was the most effective for receptive and expressive word learning, followed by independent reading with the dictionary. Mothers who read the e-book with a dictionary mediated at a higher level than mothers who read without a dictionary. The intervention contributed to advancement in learning new words beyond children’s initial vocabulary level. The research implications are presented in the discussion.

Perceptions of Nonresident Father Involvement Among Low‐Income Youth and Their Single Parents

ObjectiveTo examine sources of theoretical variation in youth and caregiver perceptions of nonresident father involvement.BackgroundRelationship complexity and environmental factors can result in complicated trajectories of father involvement. We examined both caregiver and youth perceptions of nonresident father–child relationships among low‐income, single‐parent families that were often affected by paternal incarceration.MethodThe present study drew from a sample of families served by a Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS) program in a metropolitan region of a Mid‐Atlantic state. In‐depth interviews with 27 caregivers and their 33 children were the basis of a qualitative analysis.ResultsFindings revealed 4 typologies of perceived father involvement: disengaged, sporadic, encouraged, and engaged. Description was thickest regarding the complexities paternal incarceration posed for nonresident fathers' relationships with children and caregivers' attempts to mediate between children and fathers.ConclusionNarratives about nonresident fathers were situated within complicated ecologies of environmental press such as incarceration, geographic separation, and relationship quality challenges that changed as families adapted to new realities and shifts in kin networks. Maternal mediation between children and their fathers was not a simple judgment and driven by real concerns about children's well‐being in highly stigmatized environments or older youths' contact preferences.ImplicationsCaregivers' concerns about children's fathers need to be understood as part of any programmatic efforts aimed at enhancing coparenting in nonresident‐father families. Families with encouraged forms of nonresident‐father involvement might be particularly receptive to intervention aimed at facilitating positive father–child relationships.

Maternal Scaffolding of Preschoolers’ Writing Using Tablet and Paper-Pencil Tasks: Relations With Emergent Literacy Skills

ABSTRACTMothers play a key role in scaffolding children’s writing using traditional tools, such as paper and pencil. However, little is known about how mothers scaffold young children’s writing using touch-screen tablets (e.g., iPads) and the associations between maternal scaffolding and emergent literacy. Mother-child dyads (N = 47; M child age = 3.43 years) were video recorded as they wrote words using an iPad and a paper and pencil. Maternal print and grapho-phonemic mediation behaviors were measured. Children were assessed on letter name and letter-sound knowledge, letter writing and name writing, and print concepts. No significant differences were found in the level of maternal mediation provided in the tablet or paper-pencil condition. Maternal print mediation was positively associated with letter name and letter-sound knowledge and emergent writing in the tablet and paper-pencil conditions. Grapho-phonemic mediation was significantly related to children’s understanding of letter-sound correspondence and print concepts in the paper-pencil condition, but not the tablet condition. Supporting parents in using grapho-phonemic mediation during tablet use to foster early literacy learning should be considered in future research.

The social transmission of risk: Maternal stress physiology, synchronous parenting, and well-being mediate the effects of war exposure on child psychopathology.

While chronic early stress increases child susceptibility to psychopathology, risk and resilience trajectories are shaped by maternal social influences whose role requires much further research in longitudinal studies. We examined the social transmission of risk by assessing paths leading from war-exposure to child symptoms as mediated by 3 sources of maternal social influence; stress physiology, synchronous parenting, and psychiatric disorder. Mothers and children living in a zone of continuous war were assessed in early childhood (1.5-5 years) and the current study revisited families in late (9-11years) childhood (N = 177; N = 101 war-exposed; N = 76 controls). At both time-points, maternal and child's salivary cortisol (SC), social behavior, and externalizing and internalizing symptoms were assessed. In late childhood, hair cortisol concentrations (HCC) were also measured and mother and child underwent psychiatric diagnosis. The social transmission model was tested against 2 alternative models; 1 proposing direct impact of war on children without maternal mediation, the other predicting late-childhood symptoms from early childhood variables, not change trajectories. Path analysis controlling for early childhood variables supported our conceptual model. Whereas maternal psychopathology was directly linked with child symptoms, defining direct mediation, the impact of maternal stress hormones was indirect and passed through stress contagion mechanisms involving coupling between maternal and child's HCC and SC. Similarly, maternal synchrony linked with child social engagement as the pathway to reduced symptomatology. Findings underscore the critical role of maternal stress physiology, attuned behavior, and well-being in shaping child psychopathology amid adversity and specify direct and indirect paths by which mothers stand between war and the child. (PsycINFO Database Record

The relation of maternal literate mediation strategies and socioemotional comments to Korean children's Hangul reading

ABSTRACTThe present study examined Korean mothers’ literate mediation strategies and socioemotional supports for 84 4- and 5-year-old children as they wrote unfamiliar words, and the relation of these strategies and comments to Korean children's Hangul reading. The mother–child writing interactions were videotaped. Eight strategies of maternal literate mediation were subsequently identified and five socioemotional comments were coded. Mothers of 5-year-olds used a coda-focused (i.e., emphasis on the final consonant of a syllable) strategy more often than those of 4-year-olds. The maternal coda focus was uniquely associated with children's word reading over and above mothers’ education and children's age, grade, vocabulary, and writing skill. Maternal literate mediation focused on the consonant–vowel (CV) subsyllabic unit, which explained children's reading of CV Gulja (Korean written syllable). These results suggest that efficient maternal literate mediation strategies focus on salient psycholinguistic grain size of Korean language such as CV (body) and coda subsyllabic units. In addition, the two socioemotional categories of process and critical comments were uniquely associated with children's reading. Findings underscore the importance of Korean language and culture in mothers’ early scaffolding to facilitate children's literacy acquisition.

Maternal mediation of writing and children's early spelling and reading: The Semitic abjad versus the European alphabet

Maternal writing mediation and children's literacy were analysed in two writing systems; the Semitic abjad and the European alphabet. Forty Israeli Hebrew-speaking and 43 Spanish-speaking mother-child dyads participated in this study. The children, aged: M=68.58 months, had not yet been exposed to formal reading instruction. Israeli kindergartners embark on their initial steps in reading and spelling in an abjad—a consonantal writing system that deficiently and inconsistently marks vowels by letters. Spanish kindergartners are introduced to a shallow alphabetic writing system that consistently marks consonants and vowels. This study assessed: (1) children's code-based skills (letter knowledge and phonological awareness), spelling, and reading, and (2) mothers' word writing mediation. The groups were basically similar in code-based skills, but the reading and spelling of the Israeli children were substantially lower than those of their Spanish counterparts. Maternal writing mediation was lower among Israel...

Early literacy among Arabic-speaking kindergartners: The role of socioeconomic status, home literacy environment and maternal mediation of writing

We explored the sociocultural context of early literacy development among Arabic-speaking kindergartners in Israel, focusing on the nature of mother–child joint writing. Eighty-nine kindergartners and their mothers participated. Mothers were videotaped in their homes while helping their children write words. Early literacy was evaluated by alphabetic knowledge, concepts about print, phonological awareness, and vocabulary. Kindergartners’ early literacy was related to socioeconomic status (SES), home literacy environment (HLE) and maternal mediation level. Hierarchical regressions indicate that HLE predicted alphabetic knowledge, phonological awareness, and vocabulary beyond SES. Maternal mediation of writing predicted all children's early literacy measures except vocabulary, after controlling for SES and HLE. We discuss maternally mediated joint writing interactions as a possible context for early literacy enhancement among young Arabic-speaking children in Israel.

The communicative characteristics of musical interactions compared with play interactions between mothers and their one-year-old infants

The objective of this study was to compare the communicative characteristics of musical interactions with play interactions between mothers and their one-year-old infants. The characteristics were physical proximity and eye contact, mothers’ and infants’ emotional expressions, length of communication chains, synchronisation, and maternal mediation behaviours. A 10-minute musical interaction followed by a 10-minute play interaction was videotaped at each of the 93 participants’ homes. The data were analysed using Observer5 software, which combines viewing the interaction with simultaneous coding. The analysis of variance revealed that the durations of physical contact, eye contact, and positive emotions and the length of communication chains were significantly longer during the musical interactions. The frequency of mothers’ mediation and incompatible mediation behaviours was significantly higher in the play interactions. Musical interactions were found to provide more opportunities for positive emotional arousal and synchronisation, which are the basic characteristics of quality interactions and essential for future child development.

Brief and long periods of maternal separation affect maternal behavior and offspring behavioral development in C57BL/6 mice

For rats, maternal mediation of brief and longer term dam-pup separations were thought to account for pup differences in adult "emotionality." In this study, early handling (EH), maternal separation (MS), and maternal peer separation (MPS) groups were compared to an animal facility reared (AFR) group for maternal behavior and offspring adult open-field behavior in C57BL/6 mice. Although MS and MPS dams displayed higher levels of maternal behavior upon reunion, these group differences did not predict offspring open-field behavior. However, when offspring behavior was analyzed as a function of specific aspects of maternal behavior, irrespective of treatment group, pups that received high levels of quiescent nursing and activity, but not licking, were less "emotional." Individual differences in maternal licking of pups predicted variability of "emotional" behavior for AFR and EH pups. Thus, for this strain of mouse, individual and not treatment differences in maternal care predict offspring "emotional" development.

Book reading mediation, SES, home literacy environment, and children’s literacy: Evidence from Arabic-speaking families

This article investigates the contribution of maternal mediation in storybook reading, socioeconomic status (SES), and home literacy environment (HLE) to children’s literacy level in kindergarten and first grade in Israeli Arabic-speaking families. A total of 109 kindergarten children and their mothers participated. Children’s literacy level was assessed in kindergarten. Mothers and children were videotaped at home in a book reading activity, and HLE data were gathered from the mothers. One year later, the children’s literacy level was assessed in first grade. Results show that mothers often used paraphrasing in the reading activities and dealt less with the written language. Correlations were found between SES and children’s literacy measures in oral and written language in kindergarten and in first grade. Significant positive relationships were found between HLE and children’s literacy level in kindergarten and first grade. No relationship was found between maternal mediation and children’s spoken and written language skills in either age group. Regression analysis showed that HLE was the best contributor variable to children’s literacy level, followed by family SES level, with no contribution of maternal mediation. Implications of the relationships between children’s literacy development, SES, HLE, and parental mediation in Arabic-speaking families for researchers and educational practitioners are discussed.

Maternal mediation of word writing in Chinese across Hong Kong and Beijing.

We examined the nature of maternal mediation of children's word writing and its associations to kindergartners' independent Chinese reading and writing skills in 63 Hong Kong and 43 Beijing mother-child dyads. The nature of maternal mediation of writing was analyzed across the 3 dimensions of cognitive support, autonomy support, and social?emotional support from mothers. Even with children's independent cognitive skills (phonological awareness, morphological awareness, visual skills, orthographic knowledge) statistically controlled, both the cognitive and autonomy support dimensions of maternal mediation were uniquely associated with word reading in both cultures; both dimensions were also uniquely associated with word writing in Beijing only. With cognitive skills statistically controlled, one aspect of the social?emotional support dimension?mothers' focus on the process of writing (e.g., ?make this stroke longer?)?was also uniquely associated with both word writing and reading in Hong Kong but was only weakly associated (p < .10) with word reading in Beijing. A few specific strategy differences in maternal mediation in these dimensions were documented across cultures as well. Results underscore the importance of parental scaffolding of writing processes in young Chinese children across cultures.

Mother–child joint writing in Chinese kindergarteners: metalinguistic awareness, maternal mediation and literacy acquisition

The present study examined the relations of Chinese word reading and writing to both maternal mediation of writing and a number of metalinguistic and cognitive skills in 63 Hong Kong Chinese kindergarteners. The whole process of maternal mediation of writing, in which mothers individually facilitated their children's writing of 12 two‐character words in their own ways, was videotaped. This study replicated and extended previous work on the cognitive strategies mothers use to help children in writing Chinese words. Mothers' typical mediation strategies were positively and significantly associated with both children's independent word reading and writing. In addition, maternal mediation of writing was uniquely associated with Chinese word reading, but not word writing, even with metalinguistic and cognitive skills, including phonological awareness, morphological awareness, orthographic processing and visual knowledge, statistically controlled. Findings underscore the importance of mothers' early scaffolding in facilitating children's literacy acquisition.