Mothers’ behavior into the play interaction with their oppositional children

Abstract

The aim of this study is to characterize the mothers’ interaction behavior with their preschool-age children who presented oppositional be­havior, into a play set in the Laboratory of Human Behavior Studies located in Londrina State University. The participants in this research were 35 moth­ers with ages ranging from 21 to 56 years-old and their children, with ages ranging from three to six years-old, 89% male. All children presented oppo­sitional behavior’s problems. The procedure consisted in recording on video a play session with each dyad mother-child. The mothers were instructed to play freely with their children using the available toys in the set for twenty minutes. The frequency of four behavior was registered: descriptive prais­es, generic praises, orders and critiques. The results indicated that mothers showed high frequency of critiques to the children and their behavior (0,74 responses per minute) and few praises, as generic as descriptive (0,25 re­sponses per minute). Thus, it was observed that the mothers’ behavior con­sisted in the use of three times more critiques than praises. This data presents the direct relation of the mothers’ complaints to the oppositional behavior of their children, once highly punitive and demanding parents’ styles are cor­related in the literature with children’s behavior problems.

Key words: oppositional behavior, preschool children, play set.