L. Peterson et al., PARENTS SOCIALIZATION OF CHILDRENS INJURY PREVENTION - DESCRIPTION AND SOME INITIAL PARAMETERS, Child development, 66(1), 1995, pp. 224-235
In a year-long participant observation study of remediative action fol
lowing actual injury, 61 8- and 9-year-old children and their 27-46-ye
ar-old mothers wrote records and reported on more than 1,000 minor inj
uries in branching biweekly interviews. Mothers reported that 80.1% of
injuries received no parent-initiated remediation, 14% received only
a lecture, and less than 3% of injuries were followed by parental acti
on. Children reported that 96.1% of their injuries were followed by no
remediative action and recalled lectures after only 1.2% of injuries.
Remediative action was related to type of child activity (e.g., unstr
uctured play was followed by remediation more than often purposive beh
avior) and to mother's affect (e.g., anger) and beliefs (e.g., that in
jury was the child's fault or due to rule violation). The parameters t
hat influenced remediative consequences, and thus that may influence f
uture injury, are discussed.