Connectedness and autonomy in parent-child relationships: Links to children's socioemotional orientation and peer relationships

Personal narrative conversations between mothers and their 5-year-old children (N = 192) were videotaped at home and rated for the qualities of connectedness between the dyad and the parent's support for the child's autonomy. Connectedness was found to predict the children's socioemotional orientation (prosocial, asocial, and excluded by peers) and their relationships with their peers (peer group acceptance and the number of mutual friends) in kindergarten. The effects of autonomy support were found to be dependent on the level of connectedness in predicting childrens' friendships. Finally, the relationship between parent-child connectedness and the child's peer relationships was mediated by the child's prosocial/empathic orientation toward peers.U of I OnlyETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permissio