**5. The narrative envelope: How do Brazilian mothers talk to their children indicate their values?**

Another aspect of mothers' language, namely their "narrative envelope" or the symbolic context they surround their children, was followed longitudinally by observation and video recording at dyads' homes during early development in six mother-infant dyads (Two from birth to six months - Mendes & Seidl-de-Moura, *in press*; four from 13 to 24 months - Pessôa & Seidl-de-Moura, 2011).

Mothers' "narrative envelope" or language used with their child is a concept developed by Keller (2007), and one of the parental systems in the component model proposed by the author. It consists of the social discourse that involves the child through mother's conversations, presenting different styles and contents according to cultural models.

Mendes & Seidl-de-Moura (in press) and Pessôa and Seidl-de-Moura (2011) verified that along the periods studied (birth to six months; and 13 to 24 months) mothers' speech was marked by expressions of agency and mental states (intentions, desires, cognitions, preferences, emotions and decisions) attributed to the baby, and statement of needs, categories which are associated to an autonomous self. It was also observed the significant presence of categories of social rules and co-agency, associated to a trajectory aimed at relatedness. This indicates the presence of tendencies to foster both autonomy and relatedness.

In synthesis, we believe that this set of results indicate, in different ways, that mothers' beliefs about outcomes for their children's development, the kind of practices they value, how they talk about them and to them reflect or indicate what Kağitçibaşi (2012) considers a trajectory towards the development of autonomous-related selves.
