A mother’s intentional use of serve and return interactions : a start to child participation, decolonized parenting, and child-led play

Abstract

Amidst the large corpus of international research on the relevance and deficiency of quality adult-child interactions in the first years of a child’s life there seems to be limited knowledge on how adults can build their capacity to offer high-quality interactions in homes and early years settings. Recent neuroscientific evidence presents the “Serve and Return” (SR) model to promote the “practice” of successful interactions that help build a child’s brain on a larger societal scale. To this, the SR model takes center stage in the presented work to showcase the aftermath of its intentional use by one mother to promote quality interactions with her infant in Malta. This paper aims to explore: (1) the attitudes, knowledge, and understanding the mother adopts to initiate and develop successful SR style of interactions with her daughter (age: 10 to 24 months); and (2) the type of interactions that were facilitated through the mother’s intentional use of the SR model over time. The work is framed within Bowlby’s attachment theory, postcolonial theory, and a child’s rights lens. It draws on data from a fourteen-month study: the mother’s reflective journal, transcriptions of recordings interactions, and monthly video-recorded analytic discussions between the researcher and the mother. Findings locate a transformation point that led the mother to explore a more sensitive and responsive attitude, strengthen her understanding, and overcome challenges faced with SR interactions. A key result is how a bi-directional ‘loop’ developed and generated affordances of child-led playful interactions that maximized learning, promoted child participation, and decolonized parenting. Implications are discussed to address the need for counseling, support, and training for parents and educators and activism on quality interactions.