Mother-child conflict in the toddler years: lessons in emotion,morality, and relationships

Sixty-three mother-toddler dyads took part in a 6-month prospective study that examined how differences in the frequency and nature of early mother-toddler conflict related to individual differences in children's subsequent socioemotional development. When the children were 30 months, mothers and children participated in a series of laboratory tasks and in a 1.5-hr unstructured home observation. All episodes of verbal conflict between mothers and their children were identified from these sessions, transcribed, and coded for certain elements (e.g., strategy, discussion of emotion, and resolution). At 36 months, children participated in measures of emotional understanding, social competence, and early conscience development. Mothers' use of justification, resolution, and mitigation in conflict at 30 months predicted high levels of socioemotional development at age 3. These findings suggest that conflict may be an important context for children's socioemotional development.