Talking (or Not Talking) about the Past: The Influence of Parent-Child Conversation about Negative Experiences on Children's Memories

Maternal reminiscing as critical to emotion socialization

Background

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the central importance of socioemotional skills in positive child development has become even more apparent. Prevalent models of emotion socialization emphasize the importance of parent-child talk as a critical socialization context.

Purpose

Autobiographical reminiscing about the child's lived experience may be a particularly effective form of parent-child conversation that facilitates emotion understanding.

Method

The authors provide a theoretical and empirical review of how maternal reminiscing style impacts specifically on emotion socialization in both typically and atypically developing children.

Results

Individual differences in maternal reminiscing indicate that highly elaborative reminiscing is related to both better narrative skills and higher levels of emotion understanding and regulation both concurrently and longitudinally. Intervention studies indicate that mothers can be coached to be more elaborative during reminiscing and coaching leads to higher levels of emotion understating and regulation.

Conclusions

Reminiscing about lived experience allows mothers and children to explore and examine emotions in personally meaningful situations that have real world implications for children's evolving emotion understanding.

The relation between children's attention bias to pain and children's pain-related memory biases is moderated by parental narrative style

Children's heightened attention to pain and parental narrative style have been linked to the development of negatively-biased pain memories in children (i.e., recalling higher levels of pain and fear than initially reported, which robustly predicts maladaptive pain outcomes). However, the interplay between child attention bias and parental narrative style remains to be assessed. This study aims to fill this gap using enhanced paradigms assessing children's cognitive biases for cues signaling actual pain. Healthy school children (N = 63; 9-15 years old) received painful heat stimuli while performing a spatial cueing task measuring attention bias to cues signaling actual pain. Parent-child interaction upon completion of the painful task, was coded for parental narrative style (i.e., elaboration, repetition and evaluation). Children's pain-related memories were elicited two weeks later. Findings indicated that children showed an attention bias to cues signaling pain. Furthermore, children who were hypervigilant to pain cues benefitted from parents elaborating more about the pain experience, while children who avoided pain cues developed more negatively-biased pain memories if parents had a more elaborative style compared to a more evaluative parental style. In conclusion, this study suggests that optimal ways to talk about children's pain depend upon child characteristics (i.e., children's attention bias to pain).

An Examination of the Synergy of Age and PTSD on Narrative Coherence in Child Sexual Abuse Testimony

In a criminal proceeding, a witness is considered as reliable if he/she can recall in narrative form the events, chronologically ordered, with salient contextual (place and time) details, and essential evaluations for the definition of meanings. This study aimed to confirm the effects of age and PTSD on narrative coherence and to investigate the moderating role of age on the association between PTSD and narrative coherence. Narrative coherence was analyzed in 92 allegations of children (M = 10.3; range: 4-17), who were victims of sexual abuse. Thirty-five children presented the symptoms for a diagnosis of PTSD. Each deposition has been codified through the Narrative Coherence Coding Scheme, a coding scheme based on the three independent dimensions (context, chronology, and theme). Correlation analysis indicated the positive associations between age and context, chronology, and theme; and the negative associations between PTSD symptoms and context, chronology, and theme. Predictive effect of PTSD became less and less significant with increasing age. This study could underline the importance of age and PTSD (and their synergy) in legal testimony of children who have been sexually abused.

Gender differences in emotional reminiscing in a Scandinavian sample

Emotional reminiscing is a context where children learn culture-specific ways of understanding past emotional experiences through parentally scaffolded conversations, and learn how to connect these disparate experiences into their developing autobiographical memory. The goal of the present investigation was to explore possible gender differences in emotional reminiscing in an egalitarian cultural context (Denmark). Mothers and fathers from families (N = 88) reminisced about a happy and a sad past event with their 4.5-year-old children. Parents' and children's contributions were coded for emotion words, emotion attributions, and explanations. The emotional content did not differ as a function of parent or child gender. However, Danish children talked more about emotions overall with their mothers compared to their fathers. The results are discussed in light of the socio-cultural practices.

Mother– and Father–Child Reminiscing About Past Events Involving Pain, Fear, and Sadness: Observational Cohort Study

Objective

Pain in childhood is prevalent and is associated with fear, particularly in the context of injuries or procedural pain, and negative emotions (e.g., sadness). Pain and fear share a bidirectional relationship, wherein fear exacerbates the experience of pain and pain increases subsequent anticipatory fear. The existing research has focused primarily on children’s immediate experience of pain and fear. Research on how children remember or talk about past painful, fearful, or sad events is lacking. Parent–child reminiscing about past pain has been demonstrated to differ from reminiscing about other past negative emotional events (i.e., those involving sadness, but not fear). The present study aimed to examine differences in how parent–child dyads reminisce about past pain, fear, and sadness.

Methods

One hundred and three 4-year-old children (55% girls) and their parents (52% fathers) engaged in a narrative elicitation task in which they reminisced about unique past events involving pain, fear, and sadness. Parent–child narratives were coded using established coding schemes based on the developmental psychology literature.

Results

Parent–child narratives about pain were characterized by fewer emotion-laden words and explanations, as well as more pain-related words compared to sadness or fearful narratives. Mothers and fathers reminisced with sons and daughters in a similar way across all types of events.

Conclusions

Parent–children reminiscing about past painful events differs from reminiscing about other types of distressing events (e.g., involving sadness or fear). This highlights a possibility of differential socialization of pain versus fear. Potential clinical implications of the findings are discussed.

Intergenerational transmission of autobiographical memory specificity: Indirect effects through maternal reminiscing

Mother-child reminiscing, particularly maternal sensitive guidance, fosters the development of autobiographical memory specificity (AMS) in both typically developing and maltreated children, yet little is known regarding the processes underlying individual differences in maternal reminiscing that could also relate to child AMS. Emerging evidence has shown that maternal AMS is associated with maternal sensitive guidance in typically developing dyads. We extended this research to the context of maltreatment, a risk factor for impoverished maternal sensitive guidance and reduced AMS in children. In the current study, we evaluated the indirect effect of maternal AMS on child AMS through two dimensions of maternal reminiscing style-sensitive guidance and elaboration-while including parallel pathways between neglect and abuse/emotional maltreatment and child AMS through maternal reminiscing. Participants were 123 neglecting, 30 abuse/emotional maltreating, and 78 demographically matched nonmaltreating mothers and their 3- to 6-year-old children. Results indicated that maternal AMS was indirectly associated with child AMS through maternal sensitive guidance while controlling for associations among neglect, maternal reminiscing, and child AMS, providing evidence for intergenerational transmission of AMS in at-risk dyads. These results advance the understanding of mechanisms underlying both maternal sensitive guidance and child AMS in a low-socioeconomic-status and racially diverse sample.

Gender and parental involvement in parent-child reminiscing in a Scandinavian sample

Despite the extensive bulk of literature on maternal reminiscing style, only a handful of reminiscing studies have investigated gender differences in parental reminiscing style, with none of these studies having explored the possible relationship between parental involvement level and parental reminiscing style. The current study investigated gender differences in parental reminiscing style across positive and negative event types in an egalitarian Scandinavian context while exploring the potential relationship between parental reminiscing style and parental involvement level. Mothers and fathers from N = 88 families reminisced about shared happy and sad events, respectively, with their 4-year-old children. Overall, parental involvement level was not related to parental reminiscing style. However, mothers' elaborations and positive evaluations were associated with their level of involvement level in the sad event conversations. Although mothers and fathers did not differ in their reminiscing style overall, gender differences appeared in the consistency of parental reminiscing style across event types.

Parent-Child Reminiscing about Past Pain as a Preparatory Technique in the Context of Children's Pain: A Narrative Review and Call for Future Research

Pain permeates childhood and remains inadequately and/or inconsistently managed. Existing research and clinical practice guidelines have largely focused on factors influencing the immediate experience of pain. The need for and benefits of preparing children for future pain (e.g., painful procedures) has been well established. Despite being a robust predictor of future pain and distress, memories of past painful experiences remain overlooked in pediatric pain management. Just as autobiographical memories prepare us for the future, children’s memories for past pain can be harnessed to prepare children for future painful experiences. Children’s pain memories are malleable and can be reframed to be less distressing, thus reducing anticipatory distress and promoting self-efficacy. Parents are powerful agents of change in the context of pediatric pain and valuable historians of children’s past painful experiences. They can alter children’s pain memories to be less distressing simply by talking, or reminiscing, about past pain. This narrative review summarizes existing research on parent–child reminiscing in the context of acute and chronic pediatric pain and argues for incorporation of parent–child reminiscing elements into preparatory interventions for painful procedures.

The role of narrative in the development of children's pain memories: influences of father- and mother-child reminiscing on children's recall of pain

Negatively biased memories for pain (ie, recalled pain is higher than initial report) robustly predict future pain experiences. During early childhood, parent-child reminiscing has been posited as playing a critical role in how children's memories are constructed and reconstructed; however, this has not been empirically demonstrated. This study examined the role of parent-child reminiscing about a recent painful surgery in young children's pain memory development. Participants included 112 children (Mage = 5.3 years; 60% boys) who underwent a tonsillectomy and one of their parents (34% fathers). Pain was assessed in hospital and during the recovery phase at home. Two weeks after surgery, parents and children attended a laboratory visit to participate in a structured narrative elicitation task wherein they reminisced about the surgery. Four weeks after surgery, children completed an established pain memory interview using the same previously administered scales through telephone. Narratives were coded for style (elaboration) and content (pain and emotion) based on coding schemes drawn from the developmental psychology literature. Findings revealed that a more elaborative parental reminiscing style in addition to greater use of emotional words predicted more accurate/positively biased pain memories. Greater parental use of pain words predicted more negatively biased pain memories. Although there were no sex and parent-role differences in pain memory biases, mothers and fathers differed in how they reminisced with their boys vs girls. This research underscores the importance of parent-child reminiscing in children's pain memory development and may be used to inform the development of a parent-led memory reframing intervention to improve pediatric pain management.

Facilitating the Expression of Emotions by Alleged Victims of Child Abuse During Investigative Interviews Using the Revised NICHD Protocol

Children's testimony is often critical to the initiation of legal proceedings in abuse cases. In forensic interviews, the expression of emotions can powerfully enhance both the quality of children's statements and perceptions that their statements are coherent and credible. However, children rarely express their emotions when reporting abusive events. The Revised The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Protocol (RP) was designed to emphasize socioemotional communication during forensic interviews and thus should be associated with more extensive and diverse expressions of emotions by alleged victims of abuse. The present study focused on forensic interviews (178 using the Revised and 100 using the Standard NICHD Protocol) with victims of physical child abuse whose allegations were corroborated using independent evidence. Detailed content coding showed that the RP was associated with the expression of more different emotions, more expression of abuse-related emotions, and more expression of emotions related to the interview context. Emotional expressiveness was associated with increased informativeness, and the association between the type of protocol and informativeness was fully mediated by emotional expressiveness. These results suggest that the Revised Protocol facilitates the expression of emotions by alleged victims of abuse in a way that enhances the value of children's testimony in multiple ways.

Role of anxiety in young children's pain memory development after surgery

Pediatric pain is common, and memory for it may be distressing and have long-lasting effects. Children who develop more negatively biased memories for pain (ie, recalled pain is higher than initial pain report) are at risk of worse future pain outcomes. In adolescent samples, higher child and parent catastrophic thinking about pain was associated with negatively biased memories for postsurgical pain. This study examined the influence of child and parent anxiety on the development of younger children's postsurgical pain memories. Seventy-eight children undergoing a tonsillectomy and one of their parents participated. Parents reported on their anxiety (state and trait) before surgery, and trained researchers observationally coded children's anxiety at anaesthesia induction. Children reported on their postsurgical pain intensity and pain-related fear for 3 days after discharge. One month after surgery, children recalled their pain intensity and pain-related fear using the same scales previously administered. Results revealed that higher levels of postsurgical pain and higher parent trait anxiety predicted more negatively biased memories for pain-related fear. Parent state anxiety and child preoperative anxiety were not associated with children's recall. Children who developed negatively biased pain memories had worse postsurgical pain several days after surgery. These findings underscore the importance of reducing parental anxiety and effective postsurgical pain management to potentially buffer against the development of negatively biased pain memories in young children.

Past and future life stories in adolescents with anxiety disorders: a comparison with community controls

The ability to tell one's past life story and to imagine one's personal future serves important social and life defining functions like maintaining identity. In the present study, 34 adolescents diagnosed with anxiety disorders (age 9-17) and 34 community based controls wrote stories about their weekend, their past and future life stories and generated cultural life scripts. Cultural life scripts are culturally shared assumptions as to the order and timing of important life events. Adolescents in the anxiety group had less coherent past and future life stories compared to controls. Anxious adolescents also remembered their pasts as emotionally more negative than community controls, despite the fact that both groups described equally many negative experiences from their pasts. Anxious adolescents imagined their futures to consist mainly of positive events, however, they still expected their futures to be less positive than the control group, and their future life stories were more abstract and included fewer cultural life script events than the control group. Weekend stories did not differ in emotional tone and coherence between groups, suggesting that differences in past and future life stories are not due to differences in general narrative ability.

Kindergarten children's event memory: the role of action prediction in remembering

In two studies, kindergarteners participated in a series of staged events immediately preceded by pre-event interactions that were designed to identify factors relevant to improving recall. The events were based on preschool science-related activities and the experimental pre-event involved predicting actions to occur during a target event, manipulating types of cues available to support these predictive inferences. Action prediction did improve free recall, and effects may have influenced attentional processes evoked by actions generated and enacted. Although children effectively used outcome cues to predict actions, a one-to-one relation between pre-event action prediction patterns and recall did not occur. In combination with other findings, this result may suggest that increased attention during the target event may have supported the pre-event effect rather than integration of information between the pre-event and target event. Early childhood teachers engaging children in science activities should provide explicit cues to enhance usefulness of preparatory activities for recall.

ATTACHMENT AND MEMORY RESEARCH: REFLECTING ON A SHARED PAST AND A COLLABORATIVE FUTURE

This commentary applauds the authors of the monograph, The Mother-Child Attachment Partnership in Early Childhood: Secure Base Behavioral and Representational Processes, for their thorough and elegant exploration of the development of attachment working models in the preschool years in relation to maternal sensitivity and attachment representations, mother-child co-constructions of attachment-relevant stories, and children's own secure base behavior. These findings are set against a backdrop of children's memory development, with the recommendation that future research delves even younger to explore the development of attachment working models in children under 3 years. A second recommendation is to continue the work with older children, with a particular focus on the conversations they are having with caregivers about actual attachment-related experiences. This new research poses challenges, especially with at-risk samples. Fortunately, the stage is now set for attachment and memory researchers to come together to continue to map the development of attachment working models.

Reduced Autobiographical Memory Specificity Among Maltreated Preschoolers: The Indirect Effect of Neglect Through Maternal Reminiscing

Maternal reminiscing and preschoolers' (M = 5.00 years, SD = 1.11) autobiographical memory specificity (AMS) were examined among abusive (n = 24), neglecting (n = 78), emotionally maltreating (n = 32), and demographically similar nonmaltreating families (n = 74). Neglect was negatively associated with child AMS and the quantity of maternal elaborations. In a moderated mediation model, neglect was negatively associated with the quantity of maternal elaborations, which was positively associated with AMS when mothers reminisced in a coherent and sensitive manner (i.e., affective quality). In the context of high maternal affective quality, maternal elaborative quantity accounted for reduced AMS among neglected preschoolers. The findings extend observations of reduced AMS to neglected preschoolers and inform theoretical models of autobiographical memory development.

The Parent Trauma Response Questionnaire (PTRQ): development and preliminary validation

Background: Following a child's experience of trauma, parental response is thought to play an important role in either facilitating or hindering their psychological adjustment. However, the ability to investigate the role of parenting responses in the post-trauma period has been hampered by a lack of valid and reliable measures. Objectives: The aim of this study was to design, and provide a preliminary validation of, the Parent Trauma Response Questionnaire (PTRQ), a self-report measure of parental appraisals and support for children's coping, in the aftermath of child trauma. Methods: We administered an initial set of 78 items to 365 parents whose children, aged 2-19 years, had experienced a traumatic event. We conducted principal axis factoring and then assessed the validity of the reduced measure against a standardized general measure of parental overprotection and via the measure's association with child post-trauma mental health. Results: Factor analysis generated three factors assessing parental maladaptive appraisals: (i) permanent change/damage, (ii) preoccupation with child's vulnerability, and (iii) self-blame. In addition, five factors were identified that assess parental support for child coping: (i) behavioural avoidance, (ii) cognitive avoidance, (iii) overprotection, (iv) maintaining pre-trauma routines, and (v) approach coping. Good validity was evidenced against the measure of parental overprotection and child post-traumatic stress symptoms. Good test-retest reliability of the measure was also demonstrated. Conclusions: The PTRQ is a valid and reliable self-report assessment of parenting cognitions and coping in the aftermath of child trauma.

It's in the details: The role of selective discussion in forgetting of children's autobiographical memories

This experiment investigated whether retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF) would be found in children's self-generated autobiographical memory recall. An adapted version of the RIF paradigm for adults' autobiographical memories was administered to 8- and 9-year-old children (N = 65). We hypothesized that RIF would be found in terms of both number of memories recalled and amount of memory detail reported. The relationship between memory detail at the retrieval practice phase and RIF magnitude was also investigated. Consistent with hypotheses, RIF was found for both the number of memories recalled and the amount of memory detail reported. In addition, memory detail at retrieval practice was associated with increased RIF magnitude. Findings extend the current literature in three ways. First, they indicate that selective discussion of autobiographical events with children can cause forgetting of similar non-discussed events. Second, even when these non-discussed events are recalled, they contain sparser memory detail. Finally, when events are selectively discussed in greater detail, forgetting of similar non-discussed events occurs to a greater extent.

The Benefits of Reminiscing With Young Children

Parents talk about the past with their young children from the time their children can talk. There is robust evidence that when parents discuss the past in a detailed, emotional, and collaborative way (elaborative reminiscing), their children have stronger autobiographical memory skills. We review recent research showing that elaborative reminiscing also has significant benefits for children’s language and socioemotional skills. Importantly, these findings show that elaborative reminiscing is effective with children at risk of compromised development in the context of poverty, maltreatment, or psychopathology. Elaborative reminiscing appears to foster development by providing children with practice using challenging language, encouraging them to put their experiences into words, and optimizing memory for the information gained during conversations. Although further research in diverse cultures is required, reminiscing is a promising tool—available to all families—for promoting children’s cognitive and socioemotional development.