Mothers' Regulation of their Two-Year-Olds' Behavior in Two Settings

: This study is concerned with the effect of activity settings on the mothers' regulation of their two-year-old children's activities. Ten mother-child dyads were videotaped in two settings: at mealtime and during joint puzzle solving. Attention was paid, first of all, to the mothers' regulative utterances, operationally defined as utterances that required the child to look, to speak, or to do something. The results revealed some significant differences between the two settings: during puzzle solving, the children's attention and physical activities were regulated significantly more often than at mealtime, whereas regulation of verbal activities did not differ significantly. The sentence type preferred by the mothers for regulating their children's behavior, was imperative. Finally, mealtime setting was analysed as a socialization context where the children learn to eat according to social norms and rules. Introduction The aim of the present study is to examine more thoroughly the dif..