The Meaning of the Child Interview

This textbook provides an accessible and thought-provoking guide to the Meaning of the Child interview (MotC), a tool for understanding family relationships. The MotC uses a semi-structured interview in which parents talk about their child, their relationship with their child, and their parenting, which is then carefully analysed using a process described in this book. This book is a guide to understanding parental discourse, showing how the method works, and how it can be used to plan intervention, guide practice and conduct research. The book will be invaluable to child welfare and mental health practitioners looking apply these ideas and principles, as current manuals formally assessing attachment and caregiving largely remain as unpublished manuscripts accessible only through lengthy and costly training. The book includes chapters co-authored by researchers and practitioners describing how the MotC has been used in innovative contexts to support families. It seeks to make few demands of prior knowledge, using many examples and summaries to assist the reader. By attending closely to how parents story their experience, and their child’s, in the context of ongoing challenges, this book offers a pathway for practice based on understanding struggling parenting as a relationship situated in adversity, rather than an individual failing, worthy of blame.