Mothers' reading style affect children's later understanding of other's minds

A more detailed breakdown of the mothers' reading style showed that it was particularly references to story characters' mental states and explaining their thoughts and actions using 'think' terms (e.g. Mother says: “...this boy sees so many people and thinks, 'I'll pretend I don't know what's going on and I'll push to the front of the queue'”) that was predictive of their children having a more advanced understanding of mental states a year later.