Mummy, What’s His Name? The Interactive Nature of Working-From-Home with Children in a BBC Interview

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an increasing number of online meetings being introduced as a work tool. In these meetings, children can enter the work environment. How can children participate in the world of adults in situations where work and parenting conflict? In this study, we examined this issue through a detailed analysis of a case in which an interviewee’s child entered a BBC News interview, focusing on speech, eye gaze changes, and body movements. In the after-the-fact reports, some of the child’s speech and actions were edited out, and the child was treated as if she had “invaded” the interview. However, this analysis revealed that the child did not simply seek one-way communication with her mother while her mother was working, but understood what actions she could take in the situation, and adjusted the timing of her speech, eye contact, and actions. In addition, the child maintained communication by using the formality of the presenter’s name-calling as a resource and by organizing her speech sequences according to that formality. Unlike what the media reports suggested, the child participated in the interaction actively by referring to limited cues and rules that are self-evident to adults.