A Psychometric Evaluation of the Revised Parental Emotion Regulation Inventory

Despite significant research on parental emotion, parents’ regulation of their own emotions during discipline encounters is an understudied topic. Progress in this area of inquiry would be enhanced by the development of valid measures of emotion regulation. The present article describes an evaluation of such a measure, the revised Parental Emotion Regulation Inventory (PERI2). Mothers of 2-year-old children (N?=?232) completed the PERI2, additional questionnaire measures, and a parent-child observation during home visits. The present findings support the factorial and concurrent validity of the PERI2’s suppression (e.g., concealing negative emotion), capitulation (e.g., giving into aversive child behavior to reduce negative emotion) and escape (e.g., walking away mid discipline encounter to reduce negative emotion) factors. Suppression, capitulation, and escape were distinct but interrelated emotion regulatory behaviors that were associated with such factors as harsh parenting, lax discipline, parental maladjustment, and child physical aggression. In contrast, the psychometric adequacy of the reappraisal factor (e.g., thinking differently about the child’s behavior to reduce negative emotion) was not supported. The results support the future use of the PERI2, minus the reappraisal factor’s items.     

Assessing Emotional Reactivity: Psychometric Properties of the Perth Emotional Reactivity Scale and the Development of a Short Form

The Perth Emotional Reactivity Scale (PERS) is a 30-item self-report measure of trait levels of emotional reactivity. In this article, we examine the psychometric properties of the PERS subscale and composite scores in an adult community sample (N = 428), and develop an 18-item short form of the measure (PERS–S). The PERS and PERS–S are designed to assess the typical ease of activation, intensity, and duration of one's emotional responses, and do so for positive and negative emotions separately. Our confirmatory factor analyses supported that the PERS and PERS–S both had the same theoretically congruent factor structure, and that all subscale and composite scores displayed high internal consistency reliability. Correlations with scores from established measures of psychopathology and emotion regulation also supported the validity of PERS and PERS–S scores. Our data therefore suggest that the PERS–S subscale and composite scores retain the psychometric strengths of their longer PERS counterparts. We conclude that both forms of the measure have good utility. Clinical and research applications are discussed.     

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.     

Validity of the Finnish version of the Parental Burnout Assessment (PBA)

The aim of the present study was to validate the Finnish version of the Parental Burnout Assessment (PBA) using data from 1,688 Finnish parents (91% mothers) living in Finland with at least one child living at home. Confirmatory factor analyses supported the theoretical four-factor structure of the PBA – emotional exhaustion in one’s parental role, contrast with previous parental self, feelings of being fed up with one’s parental role, and emotional distancing from one’s children. Internal consistency for the total scale was excellent (Cronbach’s alpha ≥ 0.90) and for the subscales from acceptable (alpha ≥ 0.70) to excellent. The results further demonstrated strict factorial invariance of PBA across genders and educational status groups. Finally, the PBA and its four subscales correlated as expected with the three criteria variables (depressive symptoms, sleep disruptions, and self-esteem), the latent factors of all three criteria variables being still clearly unique and separate constructions from parental burnout factors.     

A tale of two countries: Singaporean and Chinese parents' emotion socialisation during childhood and the relation to adolescents' emotion regulation

This study examined the conceptualisation of Singaporean and Chinese parents' emotion socialisation in childhood and the relation to adolescents' emotion regulation with 601 adolescents aged 12–15. For both Singaporean and Chinese parents, we examined the factorial structure underlying six parental reactions to children's negative emotions, and the relations between the established factors with adolescents' cognitive reappraisal and response suppression. The findings revealed differences in the conceptualisation of parental reactions for Singaporean and Chinese parents, with the three- and four-factor models indicating good fit, respectively. For Singaporean parents, the factor comprising Expressive Encouragement, Emotion-Focused and Problem-Focused reactions was positively correlated with male adolescents' cognitive reappraisal, and the factor comprising Punitive and Distress Reactions was positively related to female adolescents' response suppression. For Chinese parents, the Expressive Encouragement factor was positively correlated with male adolescents' cognitive reappraisal. These findings on cultural differences in the factors underlying parental reactions and their relations with adolescents' emotion regulation support the emotion competency framework for understanding parents' emotion socialisation across cultures.     

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.     

Associations Between Fathers’ and Mothers’ Psychopathology Symptoms,Parental Emotion Socialization,and Preschoolers’ Social-Emotional Development

In this study we tested whether the relation between fathers’ and mothers’ psychopathology symptoms and child social-emotional development was mediated by parents’ use of emotion talk about negative emotions in a sample of 241 two-parent families. Parents’ internalizing and externalizing problems were measured with the Adult Self Report and parental emotion talk was observed while they discussed a picture book with their children (child age: 3 years). Children’s parent-reported internalizing and externalizing problems and observed prosocial behaviors were assessed at the age of 3 years and again 12 months later. We found that mothers’ use of emotion talk partially mediated the positive association between fathers’ internalizing problems and child internalizing problems. Fathers’ internalizing problems predicted more elaborative mother–child discussions about negative emotions, which in turn predicted more internalizing problems in children a year later. Mothers’ externalizing problems directly predicted more internalizing and externalizing problems in children. These findings emphasize the importance of examining the consequences of parental psychological difficulties for child development from a family-wide perspective.     

母亲负性情绪与儿童外化问题行为的关系：家庭嘈杂度的调节作用

摘 要 对251名学前儿童及母亲进行一年的追踪来考察母亲负性情绪与学前儿童外化问题之间的关系及这一关系是否受到家庭嘈杂度的影响。结果: (1) T1儿童外化问题能正向预测T2母亲负性情绪,而T1母亲负性情绪对T2儿童外化问题的预测不显著;(2)与低嘈杂家庭相比,高嘈杂家庭中儿童外化问题对母亲负性情绪的预测作用更强,且儿童外化问题也更为稳定。结论：母亲负性情绪与儿童外化问题的关系主要表现为儿童效应,且这一效应受到家庭环境的调节。     

Assessing Attachment to Parents and Peers in Middle Childhood: Psychometric Studies of the Portuguese Version of the People in My Life Questionnaire

The People in My Life questionnaire (PIML) is one of the few available self-report measures for assessing children’s representations of the relationship with attachment figures (parents and peers) in middle childhood. The current study presents validation studies of the PIML in a sample of Portuguese children aged between 8 and 12 years (N?=?314) and adolescents aged between 13 and 18 years (N?=?281). The original factor structure, composed of a second-order factor of attachment and three first-order factors (Trust, Communication, and Alienation), was confirmed for both scales (Parents Attachment and Peers Attachment) in the sample of children and replicated in the sample of adolescents using confirmatory factor analyses. The Portuguese version of the PIML showed adequate internal consistency and correlated as expected with measures of intrapersonal and interpersonal functioning (internalizing and externalizing problems, prosocial behavior, quality of life, self-compassion, and emotion regulation strategies). The PIML proved to be a psychometrically robust measure of children’s representations of their relationships with parents and peers, representing an important advance in the measurement of attachment in middle childhood.     

Family expressiveness and parental emotion coaching: their role in children's emotion regulation and aggression

In this study, we explored the relations between positive and negative family expressiveness, parental emotion coaching, child emotion regulation, and child aggression. The sample included 120 fourth-grade children and their mothers. Mothers completed the Emotion Regulation Checklist, the Family Expressiveness Questionnaire, and a portion of the meta-emotion interview to assess their awareness and acceptance of, and instruction in managing their child's anger and sadness (3 dimensions of parental emotion coaching). Teachers rated each child's aggression and completed the Emotion Regulation Checklist for each child. The 3 dimensions of parental emotion coaching and positive and negative family expressiveness were not directly related to child aggression. However, both negative family expressiveness and the mother's acceptance of the child's negative emotions were indirectly related to child aggression through the child's emotion regulation.     

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.     

Development of the Connectedness to Treatment Setting Scale for Children with Cancer and Their Parents

Treatment for pediatric cancer requires periodic and long hospital admissions. The intensity and frequency of the interactions taking place in the treatment setting indicate that this is a context to which children and their families can feel connected. This study’s main goal was to develop the Connectedness to Treatment Setting Scale (CTSS-Pediatric Cancer), a 10-item scale assessing children’s and parents’ connectedness to the health setting where children receive cancer treatment. Participants were 128 dyads of children receiving treatment at two Portuguese public hospitals and their parents. Two exploratory factor analyses with children’s and parents’ data separately and a dyadic confirmatory factor analysis with the whole sample supported a second-order factorial structure of the CTSS-Pediatric Cancer, where three dimensions (Sense of Belonging, Comfort and Emotional Care) loaded onto a total score of connectedness. Findings suggest that the CTSS-Pediatric Cancer is a valid and useful assessment measure.     

Do Children Behave Better When Parents’ Emotion Coaching Practices are Stimulated? A Micro-Trial Study

The links between parents’ emotion regulation practices and children’s behavioral outcomes are well established. The aim of the current study designed as a randomized micro-trial was to test experimentally if and to what extent stimulating parents’ emotion coaching practices improves preschoolers’ behavioral outcomes, i.e. positive affect, irritability, non-compliance, persistence and enthusiasm. In line with this objective, the emotion coaching practices of parents of 4-to-5-year-old children were stimulated in a brief 15-min lab session. Immediately afterwards, parents and children were observed during a free-play session and frustration laboratory tasks designed to elicit negative emotions in children. The results indicated that, compared to the control group, parents whose emotion coaching practices had been stimulated displayed higher positive affect and were more emotionally sensitive during free play. Positive behaviors persisted in frustration tasks; parents were more behaviorally and emotionally responsive towards their children. In turn, children of these parents displayed higher persistence and enthusiasm but only when they had to deal with negative emotional arousal during frustration tasks. Mediation analyses also confirmed that the influence of the stimulation of parents’ emotion coaching practices on children’s outcomes, i.e. persistence and enthusiasm, was mediated by the parents’ behavior.     

Improved Perceptions of Emotion Regulation and Reflective Functioning in Parents: Two Additional Positive Outcomes of Parent-Child Interaction Therapy

The purpose of this study was to test whether Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT), a widely used effective therapy for children’s externalizing behaviors and parenting problems, was associated with improvements in parents’ emotion regulation and reflective functioning. We also investigated whether these improvements had unique associations with children’s improvements in externalizing and internalizing symptoms. Participants were 139 Australian children aged 29 to 83 months and their caregivers; all were referred for child externalizing behavior problems coupled with parenting skill deficits or high parent stress. All data were gathered via a questionnaire completed prior to and after completion of PCIT. Significant improvements were found in parents’ self-reported emotion dysregulation and capacity to use cognitive reappraisal for emotion regulation. There was also improvement in parents’ self-report of children’s symptoms, parenting practices, and reflective functioning in the form of prementalizing, which measured a low capacity to understand the emotional world of the child. Multiple regression showed that improvements in cognitive reappraisal, prementalizing, and negative parenting practices were associated with improvement in children’s symptoms. The findings extend the existing evidence for PCIT as an effective parenting intervention, adding parents’ perceived emotion regulation and reflective functioning to the list of positive outcomes from PCIT. Improved emotion regulation and reflective functioning, unique from changes in parenting practices, could be mechanisms that help explain why PCIT has been associated with improvements in children’s externalizing behaviors.     

Assessment of dispositional forgiveness in adolescence: a contribution to the Italian validation of the Forgiveness Likelihood Scale

ABSTRACT

The current study investigated the factor structure, factorial invariance, and reliability of the Italian version of the Forgiveness Likelihood Scale (FLS) among 604 adolescents in Italy (217 boys and 387 girls) with a mean age of 16.6 years (SD?=?1.3). The FLS is a 10-item Likert-type scale created to assess the predisposition to forgive across situations. The sample was randomly split into two subsamples to investigate the FLS structure. Results indicated a unidimensional structure, and factorial invariance was found for the factor solution across gender. Scale reliability was adequate, revealing appropriate internal consistency (α?=?.75). Evidence for convergent validity was also found. The results suggested that the Italian version of the FLS can be reliably used to measure forgiveness among Italian adolescents. Practice implications and future research directions are discussed.     

父母元情绪理念、情绪表达与儿童社会能力的关系

对341名学前儿童及其父母进行问卷调查, 考察父母元情绪理念、情绪表达与儿童社会能力的直接与间接关系。结果表明：(1) 父亲情绪教导对儿童社会能力有促进作用, 而情绪紊乱对儿童社会能力有阻碍作用; 父亲的积极情绪表达对儿童社会能力有促进作用, 消极情绪表达则有负向作用; 此外, 父亲情绪教导、情绪紊乱除了对儿童社会能力具有直接作用外, 还通过其情绪表达对儿童社会能力具有间接影响。(2) 母亲情绪教导对儿童社会能力具有积极作用, 而情绪紊乱则具有消极影响; 母亲积极情绪表达对儿童社会能力有促进作用, 而消极情绪表达对儿童社会能力无显著预测关系; 母亲情绪教导通过其积极情绪表达对儿童社会能力具有间接促进作用。     

Parents’ Beliefs about Children’s Emotions and Parents’ Emotion-Related Conversations with Their Children

The goals of the current study were to describe parents’ emotion socialization patterns and to assess relations between parents’ emotion-related beliefs and socialization behaviors during conversations with their children. Participants were 125 parents and their 9- and 10-year-old children from three ethnic groups in the southeastern United States. Parents reported beliefs about children’s emotions. Parents and children were videotaped playing a board game to evoke emotion-related conversations, which were then coded for parents’ labeling, teaching, and encouragement of emotion. Parents used less labeling and teaching for positive than negative emotions, and greater encouragement for positive than negative emotions. Parents with stronger beliefs about the value of positive emotions engaged in less labeling of positive emotions, less teaching of all emotions, and less encouragement of negative emotions. Parents with stronger beliefs about the value of negative emotions engaged in more encouragement of negative emotions. Parents with stronger beliefs that all emotions are dangerous engaged in less labeling of negative emotions. The results of this study have potential clinical implications in helping clients to understand the foundational structures of their behaviors and how both beliefs and behaviors are distinct, yet interrelated constructs.     

Negative and Positive Emotion Responses to Daily School Problems: Links to Internalizing and Externalizing Symptoms

Examining emotion reactivity and recovery following minor problems in daily life can deepen our understanding of how stress affects child mental health. This study assessed children’s immediate and delayed emotion responses to daily problems at school, and examined their correlations with psychological symptoms. On 5 consecutive weekdays, 83 fifth graders (M = 10.91 years, SD = 0.53, 51% female) completed brief diary forms 5 times per day, providing repeated ratings of school problems and emotions. They also completed a one-time questionnaire about symptoms of depression, and parents and teachers rated child internalizing and externalizing problems. Using multilevel modeling techniques, we assessed within-person daily associations between school problems and negative and positive emotion at school and again at bedtime. On days when children experienced more school problems, they reported more negative emotion and less positive emotion at school, and at bedtime. There were reliable individual differences in emotion reactivity and recovery. Individual-level indices of emotion responses derived from multilevel models were correlated with child psychological symptoms. Children who showed more negative emotion reactivity reported more depressive symptoms. Multiple informants described fewer internalizing problems among children who showed better recovery by bedtime, even after controlling for children’s average levels of exposure to school problems. Diary methods can extend our understanding of the links between daily stress, emotions and child mental health. Recovery following stressful events may be an important target of research and intervention for child internalizing problems.     

Depressive Symptoms among Children with ODD: Contributions of Parent and Child Risk Factors in a Chinese Sample

Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) is a developmental disorder characterized by serious and persistent social impairment, especially stressful interactions with parents. Although previous studies demonstrated associations between parent mental health and children’s ODD symptoms, less attention has been paid to integrating both parent and child risk factors. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the associations among parent emotion regulation, child emotion regulation, parental depression, and child depression in Chinese children with ODD. A total of 234 children with ODD ranging in age from 6 to 13 years, along with their fathers or mothers, completed questionnaires. Results indicated that: (1) Parent emotion regulation, parental depression and child emotion regulation were significantly correlated with children’s depressive symptoms. (2) Parent emotion regulation was related to children’s depression indirectly through parental depression and child emotion regulation. (3) Child emotion regulation fully mediated the relationship between parent emotion regulation and child depression, and also fully mediated the relationship between parental and child depression. These findings highlight the need to improve parent emotion regulation and pay attention to parental mental health, because both risk factors may exacerbate their children’s emotion regulation difficulties and further associate the high level of depressive symptoms among children with ODD.     

Predicting early emotion knowledge development among children of colour living in historically disinvested neighbourhoods: consideration of child pre-academic abilities,self-regulation,peer relations and parental education

ABSTRACT

Emotion knowledge, the ability to accurately perceive and label emotions, predicts higher quality peer relations, higher social competence, higher academic achievement, and fewer behaviour problems. Less is known, however, about predictors of early development of emotion knowledge. This study examines emotion knowledge development among children attending pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten programmes in high-poverty urban schools. The study considers child pre-academic abilities, self-regulation, peer relations and parental education as predictors of emotion knowledge development over two years. The sample (n?=?1034) of children living in historically disinvested neighbourhoods was primarily Black (85%) and low-income (～61%). The sample was part of a longitudinal follow-up study of a cluster (school) randomised controlled trial in ten public elementary schools. Children’s emotion knowledge was assessed with a series of tasks three times over a two-year period. At baseline, parents and teachers reported on peer relations, children completed a test of pre-academic abilities, independent observers rated child self-regulation, and parents reported on their educational attainment. Results demonstrate that emotion knowledge increases over time, and pre-academic abilities, self-regulation, peer relations, and parent education independently predict children’s emotion knowledge. This study highlights multiple factors that predict emotion knowledge among primarily Black children living in historically disinvested neighbourhoods.