‘Baby looks very sad’: Implications of conversations about feelings between mother and preschooler

Conversations about emotion between preschoolers and their mothers constitute an important form of shared meaning which, as groundwork for the child's developing theory of mind. could be related to aspects of social‐emotional development. A sample of 46 preschoolers and their mothers discussed photographs of infants showing eight emotions; mothers also simulated sadness and anger. Transcribed conversations were coded for frequency and function of emotion language. During both tasks, mothers talked more than their children about emotions; however, the frequencies of emotion utterances which served as unelaborated comments, or to guide the other's behaviour, did not differ for mothers and children. Older children and mothers explained emotions more overall; Cyear‐olds commented on the babies' emotions more than 3‐year‐olds. Mothers' and children's emotion language were related in interpretable ways. Aspects of emotion language emitted by both mothers and children were related to indices of positive social‐emotional development, such as emotion knowledge and positivity of emotional displays observed in the preschool.