In addition, the study found that the more directive the mothers were during play, the less engaged children were with them and the more negative emotion the children displayed toward their mothers.<\/p>\n \u201cChildren flourish when they have opportunities to make choices about what they do, particularly in play situations<\/strong>,\u201d said Jean Ispa, lead author of the study and professor of human development and family studies at MU. \u201cMothers who are highly directive do not allow that kind of choice. In our study, the children were playing with some toys, and the very directive mothers were making the decisions about how to play, what to play and how quickly to play.\u201d<\/p>\n For example, during play with her child, a highly directive mother might make her toddler put the plastic cow in the toy barn through the barn\u2019s door instead of through its window<\/strong>. If a child is playing with a pretend kitchen set, the mom might not let the child touch the fake burners on the stove. Mothers often think they are helping their children by correcting them, but they are limiting the children\u2019s creativity and possibly making their children enjoy being with them less, Ispa said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s often noted that European-American mothers are less directive generally than African-American and Mexican-American mothers, and that\u2019s also what we found,\u201d Ispa said. \u201cWhen children were only a year old, on average, African-American mothers were the most directive, Mexican-American mothers were second and European-American mothers were third<\/strong>. As children got older, mothers of all ethnicities displayed less directiveness.\u201d<\/p>\n When mothers were highly directive during playtime, children expressed less positive regard for their moms and more negative feelings toward them, Ispa said. The researchers also evaluated how affectionate the mothers were to their children and found that higher levels of warmth reduced the negative effects of directiveness.<\/p>\n \u201cEven if mothers were very directive, if they were also warm, the negative effects of high directiveness lessened in every one of the ethnic groups we studied<\/strong>,\u201d Ispa said. \u201cIf mothers were negative or seemed critical of their kids, then the negative effects of directiveness increased.\u201d<\/p>\n To benefit their children\u2019s development, mothers should show affection to their children while supporting their play and being careful to limit the extent to which they dictate exactly how their children should play, Ispa said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know that children, regardless of culture, need to feel loved,\u201d said Ispa. \u201cChildren take in the meaning of what their mothers are trying to do, so if a mom is being very directive and is generally a very warm person, I think the child feels, \u2018My mom is doing this because she cares about me, and she\u2019s trying to do the best for me.\u2019 If that warmth is missing, then the child might feel, \u2018My mom is trying to control me, and I don\u2019t like it.\u2019<\/strong>\u201d<\/p>\n Ispa and her colleagues used pre-recorded videos to analyze pairs of mothers and children interacting in play environments when the children were 1, 2, 3 and 5 years old. The mothers and children in the study all participated in the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation project, a federal study of Early Head Start, a nationwide program designed to help the cognitive, social and emotional development of children from low-income families.<\/p>\n The study, \u201cPatterns of Maternal Directiveness by Ethnicity among Early Head Start Research Participants,\u201d was published in Parenting: Science and Practice. <\/em>Ispa is co-chair of the Department of Human Development and Family Studies, which is part of the MU College of Human Environmental Sciences. Ispa\u2019s co-authors included Duane Rudy, an associate professor of human development and family studies at MU, and researchers from Arizona State University, the University of California at Los Angeles, the University of Connecticut, the University of Maryland and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the University of Missouri press release via HealthCanal: Researchers long have evaluated the roles parents play in children\u2019s development. Now, researchers at the University of Missouri have found that… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,9],"tags":[45,160,74,101,73,12],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10617"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10617"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10708,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10617\/revisions\/10708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"birthday_party\"](\"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/birthday_party.jpg\")
Researchers long have evaluated the roles parents play in children\u2019s development<\/strong>. Now, researchers at the University of Missouri have found that mothers\u2019 directiveness, the extent to which they try to control the content and pace of young children\u2019s play, varies based on the children\u2019s ages and the mothers\u2019 ethnicities.<\/p>\n