The quality of mothers' solutions to child-rearing problems: what difference does setting internal or external to the family make?

In this study we examined the difference the setting of a child-rearing pro blem, either internal or external to the family, made for mothers' generati on of solutions likely to assist a child's development of problem-solving c ompetencies. In addition, the direct effect of a mother's personal resource s (age, education, number of children parented, and verbal ability) and the direct and mediating effect of the extent to which a mother took the child 's perspective on her generation of assistive solutions were explored. Adul t mothers (n = 128) of children ranging in age from 1 month to 18 years wer e interviewed by telephone concerning eight hypothetical child-rearing prob lems. Mothers generated a greater proportion of assistive solutions and too k the child's perspective more often for external problems than for interna l problems. For internal problems, a mother's verbal ability made a signifi cant contribution to the proportion of assistive solutions generated. For e xternal problems, number of children made a significant negative contributi on. For external problems, perspective taking had a mediating effect on the relationship of number of children with the proportion of assistive soluti ons generated. The nature of a mother's perspective taking and the function that it has in solution generation for child-rearing problems merit explor ation.