Greater Sharing of Child Autobiographical Memories at Age 4 Anticipates Decreasing Parent Elaborations at Age 6

The present study examined longitudinal bidirectional associations from ages 4–6 between parent elaborations and child autobiographical memories in a parent-child reminiscing context. Danish-speaking parent-child dyads ( N = 179) participated twice in a shared reminiscing task, when children were, on average, 4.2 and 6.3 years old. Video recordings were transcribed and coded for parent elaborative utterances and child autobiographical memories. Dyadic analyses indicated that greater sharing of autobiographical memories at age 4 anticipated decreases in parent elaborations from age 4–6. Contrary to the hypothesis, parent elaborations at age 4 did not anticipate changes in child autobiographical memories from age 4–6. • Parent-child reminiscing context was investigated. • Dyadic actor-partner analyses were applied to parent-child reminiscing. • Longitudinal bidirectional associations of autobiographical memories from ages 4–6. • Slower autobiographical memory development was found. • Children sharing more memories at age 4 have parents elaborating less at age 6.