This study sets out to identify explanation patterns that parents apply in order to explain their child's success or failure in the mother tongue and the contribution of these patterns to parental perceptions of the child's competence in the mother tongue. It was found that parents with a combination (both talent and effort) explanation or talentdirected explanation for success had a signifi cantly higher opinion of their child's competence in the mother tongue during the child's compulsory school years than those parents who had an effort-directed explanation for success. As parents with a talentdirected explanation pattern tended to increase their level of assessment, the parents with combination explanations indicated a stable and high level of assessment across the child's school years. Parents who endorsed the combination explanations for success showed reluctance in their explanations for failure. Further, significant effects related to the child's gender and the parents' education were detected. In conclusion, explanation patterns seem to represent fairly constant interpretation modes, which construe parental confi dence in the child's academic competencies.

Keywords
Parental causal attributions, Mother tongue, Gender, Education, Longitudinal study