Parent Difficulties in Emotion Regulation: Associations with Parent Emotion Socialization and Child Emotion Regulation

Parent emotion socialization behaviors (i.e., parents’ emotion expressions, responsiveness to, and regulation of their children’s emotions) are associated with children’s regulation of their own emotions. The link between socialization behaviors and child emotion regulation may have developmental implications, as children who exhibit greater difficulties regulating emotions also have worse social and mental health outcomes concurrently and predictively. Despite the vast body of research on parent emotion socialization, few studies have examined whether a mother’s own regulation of emotions is associated with emotion socialization or toddler emotion regulation (16-24 months). Our study examined the association of self-reported and physiological indices of mothers’ emotion regulation (ER) with self-reported parenting styles and child ER as observed in a behavioral task meant to elicit negative affect in the child (N = 153). Findings show mothers’ self-reported ER difficulties was positively associated with more negative parenting attitudes and conditional regard (e.g., restricting parental affection based on expectations towards child’s displays of anger and good behavior). Physiological indices of mothers’ ER were associated with parenting sensitivity. However, both self-reported and physiological indices of mothers’ ER difficulties were not associated with child distress or emotion regulatory behaviors. Mothers’ conditional regard toward child behavior and anger were associated with greater displays of child aggression. There may be unique differences in how subjective and objective indices of maternal ER are linked to parenting behaviors. Implications and limitations of these findings are discussed