The effect of parental reminiscing style on preschoolers' well-being

Parental reminiscing – i.e., the way parents engage their children in conversations about past events – has been positively linked to children’s mental health, including their well-being. However, a gap remains in our understanding of which components of parental reminiscing style play a role in children’s well-being. To explore these grey areas, 24 parents and their preschooler participated in two sessions held on average eight months apart. In the first session, parental reminiscing was assessed via a parent-child conversation of a staged event (i.e., the visit of an aquarium), focusing on both the structure (i.e., how events are discussed) and the content (i.e., what is discussed) of parental interactions. In the second session, children’s well-being was measured through both self-assessment and parental report. Linear mixed-effect models revealed an association between the structure of parental reminiscing and children’s self-reported well-being. Specifically, parents’ concretizations (i.e., parents’ tendency to discuss elements in depth and follow their children’s lead) was positively linked to children’s well-being, while a negative association was found with parents’ repetitions (i.e., parents’ tendency to repeat themselves). These results suggest that parents’ behaviors during reminiscence that allow children to actively participate in the discussion could have a positive influence on children’s reported well-being 8 months later. Importantly, in the clinical field, these findings could guide the development of parental guidance targeting the parental reminiscing behaviors identified here to improve children’s well-being in early childhood.