Asian Indian Immigrant and White American Maternal Emotion Socialization and Child Socio-Emotional Functioning

Previous research provides an inadequate account of parental emotion socialization and its relation to child functioning among ethnic minority groups in the United States. This study compared reports of Asian Indian immigrant and White American mothers’ emotion socialization and examined relations between mothers’ emotion socialization and child outcomes in these two groups. Indian immigrant (n = 34) and White American (n = 38) mothers completed measures of child behavior problems and social competence, as well as self-report measures of two types of emotion socialization, responses to children’s negative emotions and emotion expressivity. Children completed a self-report measure of social competence. Results revealed that Indian immigrant mothers were more likely than White American mothers to report responding nonsupportively to their children’s negative emotions. However, reports of mothers’ nonsupportive responses were not related to child outcomes in the Indian immigrant group. In the White American group, reports of mothers’ nonsupportive responses were positively related to child behavior problems. Mothers’ self-reported negative emotion expressivity was positively related to child behavior problems and negatively related to mother-rated child social competence for Indian immigrants, while no significant relation was found between mothers’ negative emotion expressivity and child outcomes for White Americans. Moderation analyses were performed with these variables but were nonsignificant. Results are discussed in the context of cultural influences on emotion socialization and subsequent impact on child functioning.     

Anxious children and their parents: what do they expect?

Assigned 73 children, ages 7 to 14, to 1 of 3 groups (anxious, clinical control, and nonclinical control) according to their diagnostic status. Within the anxious group, children were assigned to 1 of 2 further groups on the basis of self-reported parental anxiety--either the child anxiety only group or the child + parent anxiety group. All children completed an experimental task (giving a brief talk in front of a video camera), which was the focus for a series of structured family discussions between the child and his or her parents. The aims of the study were to measure and compare across groups (a) the evaluations of children and their parents regarding the child's predicted anxiety and skill level and (b) the effect of the family discussion on children's expectations. Results indicated that, prior to the family discussion, anxious children's expectations of their future performance did not differ from those of control children. Similarly, there were no differences in children's expectations between the child anxiety group and the child + parent anxiety group. Second, compared to mothers in the child anxiety group, mothers in the child + parent anxiety group expected that their children would be more anxious and more likely to choose an avoidant problem solution (but not less skilled). Finally, the family discussion was found to produce no changes in anxious children's expectations of their future performance. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

The role of parental emotional distress in parent report of child anxiety

Evaluated the role of maternal and paternal emotional distress in parent report of anxiety in their child. Participants were 239 children (ages 7.5 to 15 years) diagnosed with a primary anxiety disorder and their parents (193 fathers, 238 mothers). Parents individually completed the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children-Parent Version (a report of the child's anxiety). Children completed the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children. Mothers and fathers reported more anxiety in their children than the children reported themselves. No significant relations were found between parental anxiety and parent report of child anxiety. When we examined girls only, both maternal and paternal BDI scores were significant predictors of parent report of the child's anxiety after we controlled for parental anxiety. Separate analyses by child age revealed that parent reports of child anxiety were more correlated with the self-reports of younger children. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Gender Differences in Parent–Child Emotion Narratives

Early parent–child conversations about past emotional experiences provide a rich environment for the socialization of emotions. This study explored the role of parent and child gender in this process. Participants were 21 White, middle-class, 40- to 45-month-old children and their mothers and fathers. At separate home visits, each parent discussed with their child four specific past events during which the child experienced happiness, anger, sadness, and fear, respectively. Mothers conversed more overall, talked more about emotional aspects of the experience, and used more emotion words than did fathers. Similarly, girls talked more about emotional aspects of their experiences than did boys. Further, girls used more emotion words when discussing scary events than did boys. Most intriguingly, both mothers and fathers used more emotional utterances when discussing sad events with daughters than with sons. Parent–daughter dyads also placed emotional experiences in a more interpersonal context than did parent–son dyads. Implications for the development of gender, emotional understanding, and clinical repercussions are discussed.     

Making faces: testing the relation between child behavior problems and mothers' interpretations of child emotion expressions

We examined the relations between preschool boys' behavior problems and mothers' interpretations of children's emotion expressions. A sample of 31 mothers of oppositional boys and 28 control mothers responded to standard stimuli depicting child emotional reactions to maternal control attempts; mothers were instructed to think of the stimuli as either (a) their own child or (b) an unfamiliar child. Mothers of oppositional boys were more likely to generate negative interpretations than were control mothers when thinking of their own children; however, this difference did not generalize to the explicitly unfamiliar child condition. Mothers of oppositional boys demonstrated negative and comparison mothers demonstrated positive interpretive tendencies toward their own children. Findings suggest that child emotion cues may trigger biased maternal cognitions even in the absence of child misbehavior.     

Maternal Emotion Regulation and Children’s Behavior Problems: The Mediating Role of Child Emotion Regulation

Children’s difficulties managing emotions are contributors to their behavior problems, and parents’ emotion regulation difficulties are also likely contributors to their children’s regulatory challenges and behavioral difficulties. This study examined the associations among mothers’ emotion regulation, children’s emotion regulation, and children’s behavior problems. Children’s emotion regulation difficulties were hypothesized to mediate the association between maternal difficulties with emotion regulation and children’s internalizing and externalizing problems. A sample of 454 mothers completed the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale, the Emotion Regulation Checklist, and the Child Behavior Checklist for their children aged 3–7. Children’s emotion regulation difficulties accounted for the indirect association between mothers’ lower emotion awareness and both internalizing and externalizing problems. On the other hand, children’s emotional negativity accounted for the indirect association between mothers’ difficulties with emotion regulation and behavior problems. Future directions for research and clinical intervention focused on promoting parental and child emotion regulation are discussed.     

Development of the Parent Emotion Regulation Scale (PERS): Factor Structure and Psychometric Qualities

This study aims to develop a self-report measure based on a multidimensional conceptualization of the regulation of negative emotions in the context of parenting. We examined the factor structure, factorial invariance, internal consistency and construct validity of the newly developed measure, the Parent Emotion Regulation Scale (PERS). The sample was composed of 254 mothers of children aged 3 to 15 years old (M?=?8.54, SD?=?3.53) who participated in an online study. Exploratory factor analysis of the PERS yielded a four-factor structure with the following factors: parents’ orientation to the child’s emotions, parents’ avoidance of the child’s emotions, parents’ lack of emotional control and parents’ acceptance of the child’s and their own emotions. Confirmatory factorial analysis supported the four-factor model, showing an adequate fit for this structure. Additionally, the model displayed configural, metric, scalar and residual invariance across the children’s sex groups. Cronbach’s alpha values and mean inter-item correlations indicated an adequate internal consistency. Correlations between the PERS scale and the Coping with Children’s Negative Emotions Scale (CCNES) indicated that the different dimensions of parents’ emotion regulation were significantly associated with both positive and negative reactions to the children’s negative emotions. Furthermore, the emotion regulation dimensions showed incremental validity in the prediction of the child’s adjustment. This study provides preliminary support for the adequacy of this newly developed measure, although further studies are needed to establish its psychometric qualities in more diverse populations.     

Combined Emotional Socialization Training and Family Accommodation Modification: Impact on Emotional Regulation and Anxiety Symptoms in Anxious Children

Past studies show that emotional socialization and family accommodation are involved in children's anxiety, but research has yet to investigate whether targeting emotional socialization training (EST), family accommodation modification (FAM), or EST and FAM in tandem can reduce anxiety in children. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of a combination of EST and FAM on improving emotion regulation (ER) and reducing anxiety symptoms in anxious children. The sample consisted of 80 children with an anxiety disorder (M_age = 6.7, SD = 0.1) and their mothers. Mothers were randomly assigned to an EST (n = 17), FAM (n = 16), Combined (n = 17), or a waitlist control (WLC) (n = 16) groups. Mothers completed The Emotion Regulation Checklist (ERC) and Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale (SCAS) at pre-test, post-test, and at 6-month of follow-up. The results showed that the EST, FAM, and Combined groups were more effective than WLC in improving ER and reducing anxiety severity at post-test and follow-up. Among the intervention groups, children in the combined group showed greater reductions in the severity of anxiety symptoms and emotion dysregulation than the other two groups. Assisting parents to use strategies that encourage healthy emotion regulation and decrease family accommodation might help reduce the severity of children's anxiety symptoms.     

Asian Indian Mothers’ Emotion Socialization and Child Emotion Expression as a Function of Situational Context

The present study examined whether reports of maternal socialization and child emotion expression differ depending on the emotion-eliciting context. Early adolescents and their mothers (N = 146) from suburban middle-class families in Gujarat, India participated. In response to hypothetical academic and interpersonal situations, children rated the intensity of felt emotion, and likelihood of expressing felt emotion, and mothers rated the acceptability of their children’s emotional expressions, and their behavioral responses to children. Results revealed that across both situations children reported expressing sadness more than anger, and expressing both emotions more in interpersonal than academic situations. Mothers reported child sadness to be significantly more acceptable than anger, and both emotions were significantly more acceptable in interpersonal than academic situations. Mothers reported problem-focused responses (solution) and scolding more in response to academic than interpersonal situations, whereas they reported problem-focused responses (explanation), coaxing, and distraction more in interpersonal than academic situations.     

Changes in maternal expressed emotion toward clinically anxious children following cognitive behavioral therapy

The aim of this study was to determine whether maternal expressed emotion (criticism and emotional overinvolvement) decreased across treatment for childhood anxiety. Mothers of 48 clinically anxious children (aged 6-14 years) were rated on levels of criticism (CRIT) and emotional overinvolvement (EOI), as measured by a Five Minute Speech Sample (FMSS) from mothers, prior to and following cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for their children’s anxiety. Results showed a significant decrease in the proportion of mothers who expressed high levels of criticism and emotional overinvolvement from pretreatment to posttreatment. This finding suggests that interventions aimed at reducing symptoms of child anxiety can also result in a decrease of maternal expressed emotion (criticism and emotional overinvolvement).     

Mother-Child Interactions and Preschoolers’ Emotion Regulation Outcomes: Nurturing Autonomous Emotion Regulation

Emotion regulation is a complex process that begins in infancy and continues through childhood with parents’ support. Early parent-child interactions shape the way children learn emotion management. We took a sociocultural and social learning approach to exploring the specific components of mother-child interactions that are related to mothers’ perceptions of her child’s regulatory ability and the child’s observed emotion regulation. Thirty mothers and their preschool children were recruited from two New England urban areas: one community sample and one head start sample. Dyads engaged in a free play session, children completed an observed compliance task, and mothers completed a set of questionnaires assessing their perceptions of their child’s regulation. Regression analyses revealed that maternal behaviors during free play predicted child’s observed hostility (F _(2,29)?=?3.137, p?<?.05) and mothers’ perceptions of her child’s regulatory ability predicted observed child compliance (F _{(2, 17)}?=?4.990, p?<?.05). Child behaviors during play significantly predicted child’s compliance (F _(3,20)?=?4.722, p?<?.05) and child’s hostility (F _{(1, 26)}?=?9.220, p?<?.001). Maternal modeling and intentional scaffolding as well as perceptions of her child’s regulatory capacity have a powerful impact on her child’s observed regulation. Results indicate that it is particularly important for mothers of preschoolers to support autonomy while guiding socially appropriate behavior. Interventions that target improving mothers’ negative perceptions of their children, educating on appropriate preschool expectations, and facilitating preschoolers’ mature play may help mothers interact with their children in the ways that foster children’s autonomous emotion regulation.     

Maternal Sensitivity and Anxiety: Impacts on Child Outcome

ABSTRACT

Children of anxious parents have been shown to be at an increased risk of developing an anxiety disorder. Thus, it is critically important to identify factors that increase or decrease that risk. The depression literature has shown that maternal sensitivity decreases negative child outcome associated with maternal depression. The current study was designed to determine whether maternal sensitivity may buffer children of anxious mothers in a similar way. Three hypotheses were tested. First, that anxious mothers would display less sensitivity than nonanxious mothers in interactions with their children; that there would be an interaction between sensitivity and anxiety on child outcome; and that sensitivity would account for variance in child outcome beyond that attributed to anxiety. One hundred and twenty-five mothers (75 anxious) and their children (ages 3–12) completed the study. Mothers were administered the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule-IV and Parent, and a subset also completed the Beck Anxiety Inventory. Children completed the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule-Child. Dyads also engaged in two interaction tasks (one cognitive, one social) which were coded for maternal sensitivity and three child outcome behaviors. Results showed that anxious mothers displayed less sensitivity in the social task but not in the cognitive task. An interaction between anxiety and sensitivity was found only when predicting child negativity in the social task. Finally, maternal sensitivity was found to account for variance in child outcome beyond that of anxiety. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

Therapeutic Assessment With Children: A Pilot Study of Treatment Acceptability and Outcome

Therapeutic Assessment (TA) with children is a hybrid of psychological assessment and short-term intervention. It uses the ongoing process and results of psychological assessment to enhance parents' understanding of their child and to facilitate change. Clinical reports and single case studies suggest that TA with children is an acceptable and effective brief intervention. However, no aggregate data have been published to support this claim. This pilot study investigated the acceptability and preoutcome–postoutcome of TA with 14 clinically referred children with emotional and behavior problems and their parents. Results indicated high treatment acceptability as well as significantly decreased child symptomatology and enhanced family functioning as reported by children and mothers. In addition, mothers demonstrated a significant increase in positive emotion and a significant decrease in negative emotion pertaining to their children's challenges and future. The findings, although limited due to the design and small sample size, support assertions from published single case studies that TA is possibly an efficacious child and family intervention for children with emotional and behavioral problems and should be studied in a larger, comparison design.     

Exploring the relationships between maternal and child metacognitions and child anxiety

Research has shown that anxiety may be transmitted through verbal information pathways, for example, when parents share their anxious cognitions with their child. Less is known about the influence of parental metacognitions, that is, beliefs regarding thoughts, on child anxiety. We explored the relations between metacognitions in mothers and their children and anxiety in the children. Our study included 111 non‐clinical children aged 8 to 12 years and their mothers. Children rated their metacognitions, worry and anxiety, and mothers rated their metacognitions. Results indicated agreement between maternal and child metacognitions. Maternal metacognitions were positively associated with children's anxiety symptoms and worry, and this relation was mediated by the children's metacognitions. Our results warrant further examination of the role of parental metacognitions in child anxiety.     

Reference to Emotion States During Narrative Co‐Construction With Three‐Year‐Old Kibbutz Children: Comparison of Mother–Child and Metapelet–Child Dyads

In this study of young kibbutz children, we considered similarities and differences between mother–child dyads and metapelet (nonmaternal female caregiver)–child dyads on their rates of mentioning positive and negative emotion states and emotion calls during narrative co‐construction from a text‐free picture book illustrating emotionally charged situations. Thirty‐two kibbutz children approximately 3 years of age, their mothers, and their metaplot (i.e., plural of metapelet) were observed during co‐construction from the picture book. All participants (mothers, metaplot, children with mothers, and children with metaplot) mentioned more negative emotion states and emitted more negative emotion calls than positive ones. Children mentioned less emotion states than adults. No differences were found between mothers and metaplot in the number of emotion states mentioned, but mothers used significantly more emotion calls than did the metaplot, and their children tended to reciprocate. The influence of the context and type of relationship on emotion regulation is discussed.     

Parental Meta-Emotion Philosophy and Emotion Coaching in Families of Children and Adolescents with an Anxiety Disorder

Using a multi-method approach, this study examined differences in parental meta-emotional philosophy (including, parental emotional awareness and emotion coaching) for families with anxiety disordered (AD; n = 74) and non-AD (n = 35) children (aged 7 to 15). Further, it was investigated whether children’s emotion regulation (ER) varied across the AD and non-AD groups. Parent(s) were interviewed about their awareness of emotions and emotion coaching; completed a battery of questionnaires that included a measure assessing children’s emotion regulation; and engaged in a parent-child discussion task. Results indicated that compared to parents of non-AD youth, parents of AD youth were less aware of their own emotions and their children’s emotions, and these results varied by emotion type. Parents of AD youth engaged in significantly less emotion coaching than parents of non-AD youth. AD youth were identified as having significantly greater difficulty regulating their emotions when compared to non-AD youth. Implications for the role of parental meta-emotional philosophy and AD youth’s emotion regulation are discussed.     

Concordance Between Mothers' and Children's Reports of Somatic and Emotional Symptoms in Patients with Recurrent Abdominal Pain or Emotional Disorders

Mother–child concordance regarding children's somatic and emotional symptoms was assessed in children with recurrent abdominal pain (n = 88), emotional disorders (n = 51), and well children (n = 56). Children between 6 and 18 years of age and their mothers completed questionnaires assessing the children's somatic symptoms, functional disability, and depression. Mothers of children with recurrent abdominal pain reported more child somatic and depressive symptoms than did their children, and mothers of children with emotional disorders reported more child depressive symptoms than did their children. Higher levels of maternal distress were associated with greater mother-child discordance in the direction of mothers reporting more child symptoms than did their children. No significant child age or sex differences were found in concordance patterns.     

Emotion Regulation in Families of Children with Behavior Problems and Nonclinical Comparisons

The current study compared parents’ emotion regulation (ER) in clinical (those with a child with externalizing behavioral problems) and low-risk comparison families. Additionally, mediation models were explored with parent ER predicting child behavior problems through child ER. Participants were 60 families with children (71.7% boys; 73% Caucasian) ages 2 through 8 years (M?=?4.62; SD?=?1.69) from a rural population in the United States: 34 clinical families referred for parent training and 26 nonclinical families. A blocking design was used to balance the two groups on key demographic characteristics. Parents’ and children’s ER was assessed using parent-report surveys and structured behavioral observations. Analyses indicated higher rates of parental emotion dysregulation (specifically, more difficulty when upset with achieving goal-directed behaviors, p?=?.01, d?=?0.67; controlling impulses, p?=?.01, d?=?0.64; limited use of ER strategies, p?=?.02, d?=?0.62; and more negative verbalizations to their child during the observed task, p?<?.01, d?=?0.73) and child emotion dysregulation (specifically, more difficulty as reported by parents, p?<?.01, d?=??2.42) in the clinical group. Mediational analyses indicated there were indirect paths from parental ER to children’s behavioral problems through child ER. Findings from this research suggest a need to measure and target ER in both parents and their children when working with families who are referred for treatment of child behavior problems.     

"Just stop thinking about it": effects of emotional disengagement on children's memory for educational material

Children regulate negative emotions in a variety of ways. Emotion education programs typically discourage emotional disengagement and encourage emotional engagement or "working through" negative emotions. The authors examined the effects of emotional disengagement and engagement on children's memory for educational material. Children averaging 7 or 10 years of age (N=200) watched either a sad or an emotionally neutral film and were then instructed to emotionally disengage, instructed to engage in problem solving concerning their emotion, or received no emotion regulation instructions. All children then watched and were asked to recall the details of an emotionally neutral educational film. Children instructed to disengage remembered the educational film better than children instructed to work through their feelings or children who received no emotion regulation instructions. Although past research has indicated that specific forms of emotional disengagement can impair memory for emotionally relevant events, the current findings suggest that disengagement is a useful short-term strategy for regulating mild negative emotion in educational settings.     

Talking About Past Emotions: Conversations Between Peruvian Mothers and Their Preschool Children

In this study, we examined gender and age variations in the use of emotion words during mother–child conversations about experiences. Thirty-two middle-class, Spanish-speaking, Peruvian mothers and their 3- and 5-year-old children participated in this study. Conversations were audiotaped, transcribed, and coded for number, types of emotions discussed, and conversational contexts in which the emotion word was embedded. Age differences were found only in children's use of emotion words. Gender differences were found only in mothers' use of emotion words. Findings are discussed in relation to socialization practices of emotional expression and gender in middle-class Peruvian society. Our results support and provide a developmental perspective on findings obtained in studies of adult emotional expression across various cultures.