Maternal response to child compliance and noncompliance: Some normative data

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine materal consequences to child compliance and noncompliance. Thirty‐two nonclinic mother‐child pairs served as subjects. Each mother issued 16 standard commands to her child in a laboratory setting. The results indicated that the children complied to 51% of the commands and noncomplied to 14% of the commands, whereas mothers prevented child compliance 35% of the time by not allowing the child sufficient time to comply. Mothers followed compliance with contingent positive attention 30% of the time and ignored compliance 27% of the time. Maternal interruptions and responses to noncompliance typically took the same form: repetition of the command.