Bidirectional Influence between Parent and Child: Rethinking Assessment of the Transition from Other- to Self-Regulation:

The purpose of this study was to determine whether children eventually achieve the competency to monitor their own task performances (i.e., memory monitoring) by way of prior social interactions with parents (i.e., other- to self-regulation). It was hypothesized that, if cognitive abilities, such as memory monitoring, are internalized via social interactions with parents, then children who are able to gauge their task performance cognitively should require little or no aid from their parents in completing the task To test this hypothesis, interactions of 26 elementary school children and their parents over 10 to 12 mo. were examined. Analysis indicated an incongruence between children's ability to monitor their task performance and the extent to which they required parent assistance to complete the task. Although children internalized the ability to monitor their task performance, no sex, age, or parent-child dyadic differences were found in children's need for parental assistance to complete the task. An...