Maternal Discourse Profiles in Mother–Child Reminiscing: Implications for Children's Cognitive and Emotional Development

ABSTRACT Influenced by Fivush's research legacy, we examined how multiple elements of maternal emotion‐related reminiscing related to children's cognitive and emotional functioning. As part of a larger project, 197 mother–child dyads (all 9 years old; 53% boys) completed an emotion reminiscing task discussing past positive and negative events. We coded mothers' elaboration, indirectness, emotion coaching, and emotion dismissing during reminiscing conversations. Latent profile analyses showed two profiles differing in extent of emotion coaching for positive events, and four profiles differing according to extent of elaboration, indirectness, and emotion dismissing for negative events. Children's elaboration when reminiscing about each event was associated with mothers' profile for the event. Mothers' reminiscing profile for the negative event was associated with observer ratings of children's use of emotion regulation strategies during frustration and disappointment tasks. Results suggest the importance of considering holistic patterns of maternal reminiscing to advance understanding of the developmental role of family reminiscing.