ABSTRACT
Interactions involving children are fraught with emotions and questions that add a layer of concern above and beyond communication processes between adults. The extra care, concern, and complications faced in adult communication with children give pause to many adults engaging in such as well as to scholars studying children’s communication. Today, adults may view children as “incomplete” and highly vulnerable communicators, to be treated with special care. Yet, clearly children’s communication is key to the development of adult communication, so studying the former involves seeking out potential origins of communication development, specifi cally communication between parents and children in key areas such as mutual infl uence (Dunn, 1997), cultural socialization (Clancy, 1989), knowledge growth (Goodwin, 2007), sports participation (Kremer-Sadlik & Kim, 2007), and use of time (Wingard, 2007).
