Parental Emotion Socialization in Adolescence: Differences in Sex, Age and Problem Status

There is a paucity of research on how mothers and fathers socialize emotion in their adolescent sons and daughters. This study was based on 220 adolescents (range 11‐ to 16‐years‐old) who exhibit a range of emotional and behavioral problems and their parents. Parental responses to their children's displays of sadness, anger and fear were assessed. Mothers were found to be more engaged in their children's emotional lives than were fathers. With a few important exceptions (e.g., boys were punished for expressions of anger more than girls), adolescent girls and boys were socialized in much the same way. Parents of older adolescents were generally less supportive and more punitive toward emotional displays. Systematic links between adolescent problem status and parent approaches to emotion socialization were found. These findings on how parents socialize emotions in their adolescents have important implications for theory as well as practice.     

How do my parents react when I feel happy? Longitudinal associations with adolescent depressive symptoms,anhedonia, and positive affect regulation

Parental emotion socialization plays a role in the development of adolescents’ emotion regulation and is associated with adolescents’ depressive symptoms. Most research has focused on parental socialization of negative affect. The scarce research on parental socialization of positive affect (PA) shows that parental downgrading responses to adolescents’ PA are associated with concurrent adolescent depression. The aims of the present study were to examine longitudinal associations of both maternal and paternal responses to adolescents’ PA with how adolescents regulate their PA (i.e., dampening and enhancing) and with adolescents’ general depressive symptoms and anhedonia. We also considered associations in the opposite direction from adolescent regulatory responses and symptoms to parental responses. In a two‐wave study (1‐year interval), 635 adolescents from Grade seven completed questionnaires. Cross‐sectionally, maternal and paternal responses to adolescents’ PA were associated with concurrent adolescents’ PA regulation as well as adolescents’ depressive and anhedonic symptoms. Longitudinally, low maternal and paternal enhancing responses to adolescents’ PA predicted relative increases in anhedonic symptoms and relative decreases in adolescent enhancing over time. Low maternal enhancing was also predictive of relative increases in depressive symptoms. The present study points to bidirectionality of relations as adolescents’ level of depressive symptoms predicted maternal and paternal responses.     

Social Development Quartet: Emotion Socialization in the Context of Psychopathology and Risk

An introduction is provided to this Social Development Quartet in which the articles focus on parent emotion socialization in the context of psychopathology and risk. In two articles, the samples of children and/or adolescents have a psychiatric diagnosis [oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) or depressive disorder]. The other two articles feature samples in which children and families have experienced serious risks [exposure to inter‐parental violence (IPV) or maternal incarceration]. The articles in this Social Development Quartet extend our knowledge of the impact of parental emotion socialization practices to contexts in which children and parents experience higher than normative risks. The work reported in these articles builds upon research on emotion socialization in normative contexts, illustrating the buffering effects of supportive parenting as well as its limits.     

Emotion Socialization by Mothers and Fathers: Coherence among Behaviors and Associations with Parent Attitudes and Children's Social Competence

This study examined inter‐relations among different types of parental emotion socialization behaviors in 88 mothers and 76 fathers (co‐residing with participating mothers) of eight‐year‐old children. Parents completed questionnaires assessing emotion socialization behaviors, emotion‐related attitudes, and their children's social functioning. An observed parent–child emotion discourse task and a child social problem‐solving interview were also performed. Parent gender differences and concordance within couples in emotion socialization behaviors were identified for some but not all behaviors. Fathers' reactions to child emotion, family expressiveness, and fathers' emotion coaching during discussion cohered, and a model was supported in which the commonality among these behaviors was predicted by fathers' emotion‐coaching attitudes, and was associated with children's social competence. A cohesive structure for the emotion socialization construct was less clear for mothers, although attitudes predicted all three types of emotion socialization behavior (reactions, expressiveness, and coaching). Implications for developmental theory and for parent‐focused interventions are discussed.     

Parental socialization of positive affect,adolescent positive affect regulation,and adolescent girls’ depression in India

An emerging body of research shows that parental socialization of positive affect (PA) is implicated in youth functioning, although most evidence comes from Western countries. In this study, focusing on adolescent girls in India, we examined associations among reports of parents’ responses to adolescent PA, adolescent PA regulation, and adolescent depression. A total of 238 adolescent girls (13–18 years) and one of their parents (54% mothers) were recruited. Participants completed questionnaires at the beginning of the school year (time 1) and five months later (time 2). At the bivariate level, parents’ dampening and adolescent girls’ dampening responses were each associated concurrently with adolescent depression at time 1. However, there were no significant direct associations between time 1 parents’ dampening or enhancing responses and time 2 adolescent girls’ depression (after controlling for time 1 depression). Using half‐longitudinal models, a significant indirect effect was found from parental dampening of PA to increased adolescent depression via adolescent girls’ own increased dampening. No indirect effect was found from parental enhancing to adolescent depression via adolescent girls’ increased positive rumination. These findings are the first to demonstrate the relevance of PA socialization for girls in a non‐Western culture.     

Maternal Meta-emotion Philosophy and Adolescent Depressive Symptomatology

The current study examined the relations between maternal meta‐emotion philosophy and adolescent depressive symptoms, as well as general adolescent adjustment and the quality of parent–child interaction. Consistent with previous findings on children in the preschool period and middle childhood, it was expected that an emotion coaching meta‐emotion philosophy would be associated with fewer depressive symptoms, higher levels of adjustment and lower frequencies and less reciprocity of aversive and dysphoric affect during mother–child interaction. Maternal meta‐emotion interviews, observations of mother–child interaction and assessments of adolescent adjustment were obtained. Results indicated that mothers of adolescents with high levels of depressive symptoms were less accepting and expressive of their own emotions than were mothers of adolescents with low levels of depressive symptoms. A mother's acceptance of her own emotion was associated with fewer depressive symptoms, higher self‐esteem and fewer externalizing problems in young adolescents. A mother's emotion coaching was associated with lower frequency and less likelihood of the reciprocity of aversive and dysphoric affect during mother–child interaction. Discussion highlights the role of maternal meta‐emotion philosophy in creating emotional closeness in families with high and low levels of depressive symptomatology.     

Influence of Gender on Parental Socialization of Children's Sadness Regulation

Mothers' (N = 60) and fathers' (N = 53) perceptions of and desire for change in their 6‐ to 11‐year‐old daughters' (N = 59) and sons' (N = 54) sadness regulation behaviors (i.e., inhibition, dysregulation, coping) were examined in addition to parental responses to children's hypothetical sadness displays. Results of multivariate analyses of variance and regression analyses suggest that parental perceptions of and desired change in children's sadness behavior differ as a function of parent gender, child gender and child age (younger (grades 1, 2), older (grades 4, 5)), and predict the likelihood of contingent responses to children's sadness behavior. Overall, fathers reported being likely to respond to sadness with minimization whereas mothers reported being likely to respond with expressive encouragement and problem‐focused strategies. These parent‐reported socialization response tendencies, however, were more fully explained by the interaction between perceptions of children's sadness regulation behaviors and satisfaction with these behaviors. These findings highlight the need to include parent gender and parental cognitions as important variables in emotion socialization research.     

Family meta‐emotion and the onset of major depressive disorder in adolescence: A prospective longitudinal study

Meta‐emotion philosophy refers to an organized set of thoughts, reactions, and feelings about one's emotions and the emotions of others (Gottman, Katz, & Hooven, 1997). This study investigated the prospective relationship between family meta‐emotion processes and adolescent‐onset major depressive disorder (MDD). Adolescents (N = 198, mean age 12.5 years) and one of their parents each completed the Meta‐Emotion Interview (Katz & Gottman, 1986), and adolescents were followed‐up at ages 15, 16.5, and 19 years to assess for MDD onset. In the Meta‐Emotion Interviews, parents and adolescents were asked about both their own, and the others', anger and sadness. Results showed that parent‐report of their own meta‐emotion philosophy of sadness prospectively predicted MDD onset in adolescence, as did adolescent‐report of low parental emotion coaching in relation to sadness, and adolescent self‐perceived emotional competence in relation to sadness. Adolescents' perceptions of family emotional environments characterized by high levels of parental anger expression and family conflict also prospectively predicted MDD onset. These findings highlight the continued importance of family emotional processes in adolescence, and provide insight into how parents' and adolescents' perceptions of emotional processes within the family, particularly in relation to sadness, may be prospectively associated with risk for adolescent onset MDD.     

Differential associations and concordance across measures of parent emotion socialization: The role of parent and adolescent emotion dysregulation

Although parent ratings, adolescent ratings, and observations are all utilized to measure parent emotion socialization during adolescence, there is a lack of research examining measurement differences and concordance. Thus, the present study compared three measures of parent supportive and nonsupportive emotion socialization and examined whether parent and adolescent emotion dysregulation differentially related to these measures or moderated concordance across measures. Participants were a community sample of 92 adolescent-parent dyads. Adolescents were 13–17 years-old (M = 15.5, SD = 1.1), 41 were female and 51 were male; 87% of parents identified as mothers. Observed emotion socialization was coded during a parent-adolescent conflict discussion task. The adolescent and parent also rated the parent's supportive and nonsupportive reactions to the adolescent's negative emotions; they each also rated their own emotion dysregulation. Due to data collection timing, COVID-19 family stress was also assessed and explored as a covariate in analyses. Bivariate correlations indicated that there were weak and non-significant correlations across emotion socialization measures. Multilevel models indicated that measures of parent emotion socialization were differentially associated with adolescent emotion dysregulation, with adolescent emotion dysregulation relating significantly to adolescent ratings, but not observations or parent ratings, of parent emotion socialization. In addition, multiple regressions indicated that there was less concordance across measures when parents were higher in emotion dysregulation. Results suggest that measurement may influence researchers’ conclusions about how youth adjustment relates to parent emotion socialization. Additionally, there may be even lower agreement across measures of parent emotion socialization when parents have emotional challenges.     

The effect of mothers’ emotion‐related responses to adolescent disclosures and adolescent perspective taking on the timing of future disclosures

Adolescent disclosure to parents is an important feature of high‐quality parent–adolescent relationships and is associated with positive adolescent adjustment. However, no studies have examined parental emotion‐related responses (ERRs) to disclosures and adolescent dispositional characteristics that may facilitate or inhibit adolescent disclosures during real‐time conversations. The present study tested (a) which maternal ERRs to adolescent disclosures predicted quicker subsequent disclosures during mother–adolescent conversations, and (b) whether adolescent perspective taking moderated these associations. Adolescent disclosures and maternal ERRs were coded moment‐to‐moment during a problem‐solving discussion and adolescents reported on their perspective taking. Multilevel Generalized Linear Mixed‐Effects Models revealed that maternal interest and validation predicted the shortest lag times compared with other maternal ERRs, controlling for adolescent age, gender, total durations of maternal ERRs, and total frequency and duration of adolescent disclosures. Adolescent perspective taking moderated associations between maternal ERRs to adolescent disclosures and lag times. Specifically, adolescents high in perspective taking were most likely to make quicker subsequent disclosures when mothers responded to disclosures with interest. This is the first study to examine how contingent parental responses to adolescent disclosures in real time affect the timing of subsequent disclosures during parent–adolescent conversations.     

Socialization in the Context of Risk and Psychopathology: Maternal Emotion Socialization in Children of Incarcerated Mothers

Children of incarcerated mothers are at increased risk for psychological, social, and emotional maladaptation. This research investigates whether perceived maternal socialization of sadness and anger may moderate these outcomes in a sample of 154 children (53.9 percent boys, 61.7 percent Black, M age = 9.38, range: 6–12), their 118 mothers (64.1 percent Black), and 118 caregivers (74.8 percent female, 61.9 percent grandparents, 63.2 percent Black). Using mother, caregiver, and child report, seven maternal socialization strategies were assessed in their interaction with incarceration‐specific risk experiences predicting children's adjustment. For sadness socialization, the results indicated that among children reporting maternal emotion‐focused responses, incarceration‐specific risk predicted increases in psychological problems, depressive symptoms, increased emotional lability, and poorer emotion regulation. For children who perceived a problem‐focused response, incarceration‐specific risk did not predict outcomes. There were no significant interactions with incarceration‐specific risk and perceived maternal anger socialization strategies. These results indicate a critical need to examine how socialization processes may operate differently for children raised in atypical socializing contexts.     

Paternal and Maternal Experiences in Caring for Chinese Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in Hong Kong

This paper reports the results of an exploratory study that (i) identified parental stress and competence, parents’ perception of their children's attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms, and the parent‐child relationship in caring for children with ADHD; (ii) compared paternal and maternal experiences in these areas; and (iii) examined the effect of children's ADHD behavior on paternal and maternal experiences in Hong Kong Chinese parents. Seventy‐two (59.5%) mothers and 49 (40.5%) fathers participated in the study, in which data were collected using a structured questionnaire. The results showed that: (i) mothers’ level of parental stress was higher than fathers’, but paternal and maternal competence in child‐rearing did not significantly vary; (ii) mothers perceived the child's ADHD behavior more seriously than fathers; (iii) both mothers and fathers had positive perceptions of their parent‐child relationship; and (iv) gender, employment, ADHD symptoms, and parental satisfaction explained the significant variance in parental stress but did not explain the significant variance in parental competence. Implications for social work practice and service development are discussed.     

'My Mom Makes Me So Angry!' Adolescent Perceptions of Mother–Child Interactions as Correlates of Adolescent Emotions

The purpose of the current study was to examine adolescents’ perceptions of mother–child interactions as correlates of adolescents’ positive, negative, and guilt emotions. Two hundred thirty‐four adolescents (M age = 16.39, SD = 1.17) completed measures assessing parenting practices in response to typical mother–child interactions in both positive and negative contexts. Adolescents also reported on the appropriateness of parenting practices, their parents’ intentions, and their own emotional responses. Multiple regression analyses suggested that in positive contexts, parenting practices, appropriateness, and parental intent were related to adolescent emotions; but in negative contexts, only parental appropriateness was related to adolescent emotions. Discussion focuses on the importance of considering aspects of socialization other than parental discipline when studying adolescent emotions, and it highlights the importance of positive socialization contexts.     

Positive affect regulation in youth: Taking stock and moving forward

This article summarizes the four articles in the Social Development quartet focused on positive affect regulation in youth. Each article in the quartet shows that parents’ socialization of youth positive affect (e.g., encouraging, enhancing, savoring, or dampening responses) is associated with youth positive affect regulation and depressive symptoms. Further, three of the studies provide novel evidence for an indirect relationship whereby parental socialization predicts youth depressive symptoms through youth positive affect regulation. The studies include samples of youth across mid‐childhood and adolescence (7–18‐year‐olds) from three countries (the United States, Belgium, and India), and utilize several methods of assessing youth positive affect regulation or parental socialization (parent‐reported surveys, youth‐reported surveys, coded parent–child discussions). This integrative article also identifies several ways in which the study of youth positive affect regulation can be advanced. We address the conceptualization of positive affect regulation and the socialization of children's positive affect, constraints on the adaptiveness of upregulating positive emotions, methodological directions, potential moderated effects based on child characteristics such as sex or temperament, and the importance of studying outcomes beyond depression.     

Interaction between adoptive mothers’ and fathers’ depressive symptoms in risk for children’s emerging problem behavior

The effect of parental depression on children's adjustment has been well documented, with exposure during early childhood particularly detrimental. Most studies that examine links between parental depression and child behavior are confounded methodologically because they focus on parents raising children who are genetically related to them. Another limitation of most prior research is a tendency to focus only on the effects of maternal depression while ignoring the influence of fathers’ depression. The purpose of this study was to examine whether infants’ exposure to both parents’ depressive symptoms, and inherited risk from birth mother internalizing symptoms, was related to school age children's externalizing and internalizing problems. Study data come from a longitudinal adoption study of 561 adoptive parents, biological mothers, and adopted children. Adoptive fathers’ depressive symptoms during infancy contributed independent variance to the prediction of children's internalizing symptoms and also moderated associations between adoptive mothers’ depressive symptoms and child externalizing symptoms.     

Toward integrating research on parent–child emotion talk and linguistic theory: A spotlight on parents’ (in)direct communication

Parent–child discussions about emotion are a key socialization influence on children’s socio‐emotional development. Extant research on parent–child discussions about emotion largely focuses on three main types of discourse content: parental elaboration, parental use of emotion labels and explanations, and parental emotion coaching. A new direction involves distinguishing between parents’ direct and indirect communication of discourse content. This distinction may be vital when considering the role of children’s communicative competence in their developing socio‐emotional competence. We integrate literature on (in)direct communication, a concept prominent in linguistics, and emotion socialization. We argue that parental indirect communication can teach children communicative competence in the context of emotion talk. We discuss literature from the developmental and linguistic fields on parents’ teaching of communicative skills, as well as potential cognitive, relational, and emotional functions of indirectness, with communication and its socialization embedded within cultural context. Finally, we suggest new research directions examining the role of parental indirect communication in children’s socio‐emotional development. By integrating developmental and linguistic literatures, we provide a novel approach to the study of parental emotion socialization through parent–child discourse.     

Sibling Jealousy in a Triadic Context with Mothers and Fathers

The current study focused on jealousy between toddler and preschool siblings. Sixty-two families participated in triadic interaction sessions, in which mothers and then fathers were instructed to focus on one child (older sibling or toddler) while encouraging the other child to play with other toys in the room. Results indicated that child jealousy reactions differed between mothers and fathers, and parents behaved differently with older and younger siblings. Although older and younger siblings showed jealousy, older children were better than their toddler-age siblings at regulating jealousy responses and engaging in focused play. Further, younger siblings showed differences in jealous behavior when interacting with each parent, whereas older siblings showed somewhat greater behavioral consistency across parents, indicating internalization of emotion regulation style. Mothers expressed more happiness than fathers, and parents responded differently to older versus younger siblings' behaviors. Findings underscore the importance of examining emotion regulation processes within salient family relationships and of considering sibling interaction as a socialization context in which young children learn to negotiate emotional challenges.     

Parental self‐esteem,parent–child relationships,and authoritative parenting of Chinese migrant parents of left‐behind children: Implications for social policy and services

In this study, we aimed to examine whether and how parental self‐esteem and parent–child relationships interact and associate with the authoritative parenting of Chinese rural‐to‐urban migrant mothers and fathers of left‐behind children. Results from a cross‐sectional survey of 295 Chinese migrant parents living in Shenzhen revealed no statistically significant differences between migrant mothers and fathers in parental self‐esteem, parent–child relationships, and authoritative parenting. Both parental self‐esteem and parent‐child relationships had positive associations with authoritative parenting among two groups of respondents; however, the perceived parent–child relationship quality was a more important predictor than parental self‐esteem. There was also an interaction effect between parental self‐esteem and parent–child relationships on migrant mothers’ authoritative parenting. The findings indicate that migrant parents’ perception of their encounters with their children has a profound influence on their parenting behaviors. Social services should, thus, be provided to strengthen both virtual and face‐to‐face parent–child interactions via mobile phone parenting and periodic visits. New policies should be developed to provide migrant parents with more options regarding family reunion.     

Parasympathetic Regulation and Parental Socialization of Emotion: Biopsychosocial Processes of Adjustment in Preschoolers

Variations in parents' emotion socialization have been linked to children's social competence (SC) and behavior problems, but parental influences do not act independently of children's characteristics. A biopsychosocial model was tested, in which children's parasympathetic regulation of cardiac function and paternal and maternal socialization of negative emotions were examined as joint predictors of young children's SC and behavior problems at daycare and preschool. Mothers and fathers responded differently to children's emotions, and cardiac vagal tone moderated the relations between parents' emotion socialization and children's behavior in early childcare settings. Both maternal and paternal emotion socialization strategies were more strongly associated with preschool adjustment for children with relatively less parasympathetic self‐regulatory capacities than for more self‐regulated children. Paternal reactions to children's anger, and maternal responses to children's sadness and fear, were particularly closely tied to variations in SC and internalizing and externalizing problems.     

The quality of mother‐adolescent disclosure: Links with predictors and adolescents’ sociomoral outcomes

Previous work on adolescents’ disclosure has focused on the frequency of disclosure to parents, but not the quality of that disclosure. Therefore, there is a need to examine factors that predict the quality of adolescents’ disclosure, as well as the consequences of the quality for adolescents’ outcomes. In this study, 100 adolescents (M age = 14.27 years; 57 girls; 70.7% White, European American) disclosed to mothers a recent past event in which they felt excluded; the videotaped and transcribed conversations were rated for indices of the quality of disclosure (i.e., the quality of elaboration and emotion discussed). Adolescents completed measures of sociomoral behavior and parental warmth and mothers completed measures of their moral identity, circle of moral regard, and moral socialization. The quality of adolescents’ disclosure was related to adolescents’ sociomoral outcomes (including prosocial behaviors, empathy, and sociability). Adolescents’ disclosure quality was predicted by gender and by aspects of mothers’ moral sophistication. Findings highlight the importance of high‐quality self‐disclosure by adolescents for promoting adolescents’ moral development, potentially because such disclosure gives parents the opportunity to help adolescents cope with challenging peer experiences potentially through emotion coaching and problem‐solving. Moreover, the findings are novel because they highlight how maternal moral processes might promote adolescents’ disclosure.