The terrible twos

Autor(en)

Felix Deichmann, Lieselotte Ahnert

Abstrakt

Experimental Frustration Procedures with 158 children (15–39 months) of two-parent families were conducted, with each parent separately involved. We examined diverse characteristics of children's frustration and focused on specific behaviors of how children coped and parents supported them. In addition, external observers measured child attachment security (via Attachment Q Sort) toward the mother and the father during two home visits. Children with high attachment security became frustrated later and for a shorter time, and fathers, as compared to mothers, relieved these frustration patterns and reduced them. Although 22.2% children exhibited intense frustration responses up to tantrums, levels remained unaffected by child gender, but decreased with child age. Time-lag analyses revealed that children's self-comforting behaviors reduced frustration responses only by around 20%, but self-distracting (in younger children) and pretend-playing (in older children) by around 50% and 70%. Of the parent behaviors, demonstrating reduced children's frustration by up to 40% whereas distracting and reframing by around 60% (mothers) and 80% (fathers). In general, mothers tended to protect the child from distress, whereas fathers assisted the child in coping with frustration. However, if mothers soothed and fathers encouraged, children's frustration intensified.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Klinische und Gesundheitspsychologie

Journal

Infancy

Band

26

Seiten

469-493

Anzahl der Seiten

25

ISSN

1525-0008

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1111/infa.12389

Publikationsdatum

2019

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

501005 Entwicklungspsychologie

Schlagwörter

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Developmental and Educational Psychology, Pediatrics, Perinatology, and Child Health

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/25e70060-10b1-462a-a1d9-73b7b94c0b03