Rearing styles, parents' attachment mental states and children's social abilities: The link to peer acceptance

This study examines the discriminant effect on children's peer acceptance of mothers' and fathers' internal attachment working models, the quality of their observed relationships in everyday settings and children's social abilities. Participants were thirty-four 7-9 years olds, their mothers and fathers. Interactions were observed at home and coded on global measures of positive, negative, controlling, disconfirming, correcting behaviors and neutral conversation. Parents'IWM were assessed by the AAI. Children's peer acceptance and behavioral orientations as a measure of a child's social competence at school were assessed by sociometric techniques. Our results indicate that children's lack of competence associated with parents' rejecting/neglecting and directive interactive styles and mainly with negative and disconfirming interactions and a few positive behaviors that were, in turn, linked to adults' insecure IWM.