Does talking matter?: Mother-child reminiscing in relation to adolescent wellbeing within a New Zealand sample.

Abstract

The emotional content of past event conversations is important for adolescent well-being, and are said to be different as a result of gender. The aim of the present study was to examine the relationship between parent-child conversations and adolescent wellbeing. This was done at two time-points in a New Zealand sample (N = 58). At the age 12 time-point, 46 mother-child dyads participated in reminiscing both positive and negative event conversations and completed an adolescent wellbeing assessment. At age 16, 51 adolescents completed a well-being assessment. All mother-child narratives were coded for emotions, evaluations and explanations. There were concurrent correlations between emotion talk in mother-child narratives and age 12 wellbeing; in the positive event, the more the child expressed positive emotion at age 12, the better their self-esteem. However, there were no long-term correlations between age 12 narratives and age 16 adolescent well-being. In the negative conversations only, talk pertaining to the child’s negative emotion was linked to greater well-being for girls, but not boys. Results are discussed with respect to past research in autobiographical memory as well as implications for New Zealand adolescents.