Abstract

Compliance and noncompliance with maternal requests represent key milestones in children's social development. The objectives of the present study were to: (1) investigate whether maternal requests, and child compliance and noncompliance vary according to play context, maternal request strategy, child noncompliance strategy, and child age, and (2) examine the contribution of maternal childhood histories of aggression and withdrawal to the prediction of maternal request strategies and child compliance and noncompliance. Participants were recruited from the Concordia Longitudinal Risk Project, which began in 1977 when children in Grades 1, 4, or 7 from disadvantaged neighbourhoods were classified along dimensions of aggression and social withdrawal. Seventy-four mothers were videotaped in their homes while they interacted with their children (aged 2 to 6 years) during three play contexts: a puzzle task, a free play, and a command task. Maternal request strategies and child compliance and noncompliance were coded using the Request/Compliance Coding Scheme. In general, the results supported the hypotheses that (1) child compliance and noncompliance are related to maternal request strategies, which vary according to child age and play context, and that (2) maternal childhood histories of social withdrawal contribute to the prediction of request strategies, which serve to predict child compliance and noncompliance. Taken together, these results elucidate the role of play context in the development of compliance with maternal requests, and broaden the current understanding of the pathways towards maladaptive and healthy social development. Furthermore, these results have implications for early interventions and parent training programs