Relations Between Children’s Levels of Responsiveness and Resistance, Maternal Interaction Behaviors, and Children’s Social Behaviors With Peers in School

Children’s peer relationships have their origins in family relationships. The present study focuses on the relative importance of children’s levels of responsiveness and/or resistance during mother-child interactions and tests a model of the direct and indirect relations between mother interaction behaviors and children’s social behaviors with peers. Findings indicated that children of mothers who were more controlling were likely to be more controlling and dominant in their relationships with peers. Also, mothers’ impositions were related to children’s dominant behavior with peers. Children’s level of responsiveness toward mothers moderated the effects of mothers’ cohesiveness in relation to children’s prosocial behaviors with peers. Children with high level of responsiveness toward their mothers’ cohesiveness were more likely to display prosocial behaviors among peers. Finally, the relation of mothers’ autonomy support on children’s leadership was moderated by either the child’s responsiveness or resistance toward mothers. These findings highlight the importance of synchrony in the relationship between the mother and the child and indicate a bidirectional nature of this relationship.