Young children's affect attunement and understanding of others'mind shown in confronting or playful communication with their mothers or siblings

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The subjects were 7 first-born and 8 later-born children and their families who are part of a longitudinal study of playful teasing from early infancy. At 18, 30, and 42 months of children' s age, their emotional transactions within the family context were video-taped. The focus of videotaping was on how the children communicated with their mothers, fathers, siblings, or friends in their daily life.Their confronting and playful communication were analyzed. Harmonious and disharmonious episodes were extracted and transcribed. Pretend play, playful teasing, imitation, exaggerated emotion and/or actions, disputes, or conflicting emotion and/or actions were shown in the episodes.Results indicated that the quality of emotional communication reflected the differences in family relationship. Children who have empathic parents to their emotion expressed playful teasing more often and could attune emotion very well. They also understood others' emotion and intentions very well. Children who showed frequent conflicting episodes with their siblings were not able to attune their emotion and read others' mind well. These results suggest that the children's emotionally-charged experience within each family's emotional climate is likely to facilitate or impede the development of understanding others' mind.