Focusing on mother–child verbal interactions in two different contexts, the present study examined whether differences in maternal conversational style could be explained by children's linguistic and conversational abilities and by the mothers' expressed attitudes to collectivism. To this end, 20 Estonian mothers were videotaped with their 6-year-old children during mealtime and puzzle solving, and they were asked to fill in a questionnaire on collectivistic attitudes. The results showed that the mothers' frequency of engaging children in conversation was not related to the children's linguistic and conversational abilities. The children talked more and spoke more complexly during puzzle solving. The context had a great influence on the maternal regulatory speech. Contrary to the expectations, mothers who scored higher in collectivism were not more directive; instead, they tended to be more talkative.