Children's self-esteem and moral self: links to parent-child conversations regarding emotion

The current study has two aims: (1) to examine associations between the emotional content of parent-child past event conversations and two aspects of children's self-concept-moral self and self-esteem; and (2) to examine the degree to which talk about past events is uniquely associated with self-concept when compared with talk about ongoing events and situations. Fifty-one five- and six-year-old New Zealand children and their parents discussed four emotional past events and two ongoing conflicts. Children's moral self self-esteem and language ability were also assessed. When parents referred to a greater number of positive emotions and evaluations, regardless of conversation type, their children had higher self-esteem. Past event talk also uniquely predicted children's self-esteem: Parents who used more explanations during conversations regarding past negative emotions, and more explanations and confirmations of past positive emotions, had children with higher self-esteem. We discuss these results with respect to an autobiographical memory approach to self-concept development.