Guiding Relationship: What Experts Say

There are a host of psychologists, educators and other experts who make a strong case that parents play the primary role in children’s mental, self and neural development. Today I wanted to share with you a few of the things the experts have to say.

Context for Development

“Parents are the architects and managers of their children’s development, [providing] the fundamental foundations that determine  whether or not children will be able to derive maximum benefit from their future experiences.” (Neitzel & Stright, 2003)

Drs. Brownell & Kopp have referred to parent-child interaction as,  “… the fundamental context for development.” (Brownell & Kopp, 2007)

In a similar vein, Dr. Peter Hobson has convincingly argued that higher level thinking can only be acquired by having mental processes, ‘pass through the minds of others’, “Through others the child gains a vantage-point from which to relate to her own attitudes and actions. … she can begin to sort out what It is to have one perspective among many.” (Hobson, 2002)

Related: A Brief Introduction to MindGuiding

Routine Interactions Are Crucial

A number of noted psychologists have discussed the critical role of what may seem like ‘routine’ parent-child conversations – reminiscing about prior events, providing perspectives on current events and preparing for future events – in developing children’s mental awareness & sense of self:

Dr. Katherine Nelson has described how learning to establish a past that can be traveled through [in one’s mind] depends on child and parent’s shared remembering experiences. “The result of this learning is the establishment of a store of memories [..] forming a personal history that has its own value independent of the general memory function of prediction and preparation.” (Nelson, 1988)

Fivush & Nelson describe how, through parent-scaffolded interaction, “… children come to understand their memories as representations, and themselves as having unique perspectives on their past.”  (Fivush & Nelson, 2006)

Hoerl has discussed how, through joint reminiscence, children develop the motivation and means to save memories, not as a temporary store but as having meaning in and of themselves. “Talking about experienced events with parents who scaffold children’s narratives and provide coherence and organization, not only provides a means for organizing them for future recall but also for how to organize saved representations in relation to others by understanding how they ‘fit’ into the child’s historical life, including how they link with other events.” (Hoerl, 2007).

More recently, Fivush described how joint reminiscing with parents not only creates an individual history; it also creates a shared history.  “Through reminiscing with others about shared events, one creates an autobiography intertwined with others. We are bonded together in the present because of what we have shared in the past. Thus mother – child reminiscing is critical for creating and maintaining emotional bonds.” (Fivush, 2011)