中華心理衛生協會

Purpose: Past studies have shown that a mother's maternal love and their children's perception of that love is not the same. The purpose of this study is to identify the factors that influence the affect between mothers and their children and to describe the process by which that happens. Methods: We interviewed 14 Taiwanese mothers and their 16 adolescent children and made a thematic analysis of the results. Results: Our analysis of the examples of mother-child interactions identified 5 types of explicit maternal love and the corresponding response of the child: (1) mothers with rich explicit maternal devotion had children who reported experiences of rich maternal love, (2) mothers with favorable but slightly fluctuating maternal devotion had children who reported fluctuating but not bad maternal love, (3) mothers whose maternal love decreased gradually as the child grew up had children with mixed feelings concerning maternal love, (4) the ordinary level of child's feeling corresponded to the ordinary level of maternal devotion, and (5) mothers with difficult living conditions who exhibited highs and lows in their expression of love to their children tended to have children who reported unique experiences and good feelings. Conclusions: The mother's maternal love affected the feelings of their children. The mother's marriage and economic difficulties, parenting concepts and practices, and the children's ability to reflect on this experience are key factors affecting the extent of explicit maternal love and the child's perception of maternal love.