Early socialization of prosocial behavior: Patterns in parents’ encouragement of toddlers’ helping in an everyday household task

• We examine differences in parental strategies for encouraging helping in toddlers.
• Parents of 18-month-olds emphasized concrete, action-oriented task-based approaches.
• Parents of 24-month-olds used more abstract, need-oriented approaches.
• Parents regulated the attention of younger toddlers more.
• Parents offered more social approval to older toddlers.

Patterns in parents’ socialization of prosocial behavior in 18- and 24-month-olds (n = 46) were investigated during an everyday household chore that parents were asked to complete with their toddlers. Two socialization approaches were distinguished, one focused on specific requests for concrete actions needed to complete an immediate, concrete goal (“action-oriented”), and a second focused on the more abstract needs and emotions of the parent and the child's role as a helper (“need-oriented’). Parents were equally active at both ages in trying to elicit children's help but used different strategies with younger and older toddlers. With 18-month-olds they used more action-oriented approaches, whereas with 24-month-olds they increased their use of need-oriented approaches. They also regulated the attention of younger toddlers more, and more often socially approved older toddlers’ helping. Thus, how parents prompt, support, and encourage prosocial behavior changes over the second year from utilizing primarily concrete, goal-directed requests in the service of the immediate task, to increasingly emphasizing more abstract needs and emotions of the recipient and the child's role as a helper.