Mothers' interoceptive knowledge predicts children's emotion regulation and social skills in middle childhood

Interoception, often defined as the perception of internal physiological changes, is implicated in many adult social affective processes, but its effects remain understudied in the context of parental socialization of children's emotions. We hypothesized that what parents know about the interoceptive concomitants of emotions, or interoceptive knowledge (e.g., “my heart races when excited”), may be especially relevant in emotion socialization and in supporting children's working models of emotions and the social world. We developed a measure of mothers' interoceptive knowledge about their own emotions and examined its relation to children's social affective outcomes relative to other socialization factors, including self‐reported parental behaviors, emotion beliefs, and knowledge of emotion‐relevant situations and non‐verbal expressions. To assess these, mothers (N = 201) completed structured interviews and questionnaires. A few months later, third‐grade teachers rated children's social skills and emotion regulation observed in the classroom. Results indicated that mothers' interoceptive knowledge about their own emotions was associated with children's social affective skills (emotion regulation, social initiative, cooperation, self‐control), even after controlling for child gender and ethnicity, family income, maternal stress, and the above maternal socialization factors. Overall, findings suggest that mothers' interoceptive knowledge may provide an additional, unique pathway by which children acquire social affective competence.     

Temperament,mothers' reactions to children's emotional experiences,and emotion understanding predicting adjustment in preschool children

It is expected that both children and their parents contribute to children's development of emotion knowledge and adjustment. Bidirectional relations between child temperament (fear, frustration, executive control) and mothers' reactions to children's emotional experiences were examined to explore how these variables predict children's emotion understanding, social competence, and problem behaviors. Preschool‐aged children (N = 306) and their mothers were assessed across four‐time points. Children's temperament and mothers' non‐supportive reactions to children's emotional experiences were assessed when children were 36 and 45 months of age. Emotion understanding was assessed when the children were 54 months of age and teachers reported on children's problem behaviors and social competence when the children were 63 months of age. Covariates included family income, child cognitive ability, gender, and child adjustment at 36 months. Results from path analyses demonstrated that bidirectional relations between children's temperament and mothers' non‐supportive reactions were not significant. However, mother's non‐supportive reactions directly predicted fewer problem behaviors, and children's emotion understanding mediated the relation between children's executive control and their later social competence. As such, emotion understanding appears to be one mechanism through which executive control might impact social competence.     

Parental affect profiles predict child emotion regulation and classroom adjustment in families experiencing homelessness

Parenting shapes the development of emotion regulation skills in early childhood, laying a key foundation for social-emotional adjustment. Unfortunately, high adversity exposure may disrupt parental emotion socialization practices and children's regulatory development. The current study used variable- and person-centered approaches to evaluate links among parental emotion expressiveness, children's observed emotion regulation, and teacher-reported adjustment among 214 4- to 6-year-old children experiencing homelessness, an indicator of high cumulative risk and acute adversity. Structured parent-child interaction tasks were recorded on site in emergency shelters over the summer and micro-socially coded for parent and child expressions of anger, positive affect, and internalizing distress. We anticipated that parental modeling of predominantly negative emotion expression would be associated with more child dysregulation during parent-child interaction and worse adjustment at school, as reported by teachers the following school year. Preliminary analyses indicated that children's observed difficulty downregulating anger was associated robustly with teacher-reported social-behavioral problems. Latent profile analysis was used to identify three patterns of parental emotion expression characterized by above-average expression of positive affect, internalizing distress, and anger. Parents’ likelihood of membership in the elevated anger profile significantly predicted children's observed difficulty down-regulating anger and higher social-behavioral problems at school. In addition to ongoing efforts to reduce poverty-related risk, supporting adaptive anger regulation in parents and young children may be important for enhancing resilience among families experiencing homelessness and similar conditions of high cumulative risk.     

Changing tides: Mothers’ supportive emotion socialization relates negatively to third‐grade children's social adjustment in school

Parents’ supportive reactions to children's negative emotions are thought to promote children's social adjustment. Research heretofore has implicitly assumed that such reactions are equally supportive of children's adjustment across ages. Recent findings challenge this assumption, suggesting that during middle childhood, socialization practices previously understood as supportive may in fact impede children's social adjustment. We explored this possibility in a sample of 203 third‐grade children and their mothers. Using structural equation modeling, we tested associations between mothers’ supportive (i.e., problem‐ and emotion‐focused) reactions to children's negative emotions and children's social skills and problems as reported by mothers and teachers. Mothers’ supportive reactions predicted greater social adjustment in children as reported by mothers. Inverse associations, however, were found with teachers’ reports of children's social adjustment: mothers’ supportive reactions predicted fewer socioemotional skills and more problem behaviors. These contrasting patterns suggest potential unperceived costs associated with mothers’ supportiveness of children's negative emotions for third‐grade children's social adjustment in school and highlight the importance of considering associations between socialization practices and children's various social contexts. The findings also highlight a need for greater consideration of what supportiveness means across different developmental periods.     

Parenting and children’s prosocial and problem behaviors in middle childhood: The role of Turkish mothers’ emotion socialization practices

Mechanisms by which the relations between different parenting behaviors and children’s prosocial and problem behaviors occur are the focus of the current study. Supportive and nonsupportive emotion socialization practices of mothers were considered as potential mediators. Further, the moderator role of gender was explored. Participants were 228 mothers of 6‐ to 11‐year‐old children living in Ankara, Turkey. Scales assessing parenting behaviors (specifically, positive parenting and inconsistent discipline), maternal reactions to children’s negative emotions, and prosocial and problem behaviors of children were completed by the mothers. The results revealed that supportive emotion socialization practices fully mediated the relation between positive parenting behaviors and both boys’ and girls’ prosocial behaviors. In contrast, nonsupportive emotion socialization practices partially mediated the relation between inconsistent parenting behaviors and problem behaviors, but only for girls. Findings indicated that girls were more vulnerable to their mothers’ inconsistent behaviors possibly because mother–daughter dyads are more likely to use emotion‐related language and to discuss emotions than mother–son dyads from a very early age.     

Active emotion regulation mediates links between shyness and social adjustment in preschool

Shyness is characterized by the experience of heightened fear, anxiety, and social‐evaluative concerns in social situations and is associated with increased risk for social adjustment difficulties. Previous research suggests that shy children have difficulty regulating negative emotions, such as anger and disappointment, which contributes to problems interacting with others. However, it remains unclear precisely which strategies are involved among these associations. Accordingly, the goal of this study was to explore the mediating role of emotion regulation strategies in the links between young children’s shyness and social adjustment at preschool. Participants were 248 preschool children aged 2.5–5 years. Parents rated children’s shyness and emotion regulation strategies in the context of anger and fear. Early childhood educators assessed indices of social adjustment 4 months later. Among the results, active regulation mediated associations between shyness and subsequent prosocial and socially withdrawn behaviors. Child gender further moderated these linkages, such that the model predicting socially withdrawn behavior was stronger among boys. These results expand on our understanding of emotion regulation strategies in shy children’s early socio‐emotional development.     

Longitudinal relations of emotion knowledge to psychosocial adjustment in European and Chinese American school-age children

The study is the first to examine the developmental trajectory of emotion knowledge as it relates to psychosocial adjustment in a cross-cultural context. European American (EA, n = 68, 28 boys) and Chinese American (CA, n = 62, 31 boys) children and their mothers participated. Children's emotion knowledge was assessed, and their psychosocial adjustment was reported by mothers at three time points when children were 6.5, 7, and 8 years of age. Although EA children had greater emotion knowledge at Time 1, CA children's emotion knowledge grew faster over the following 1.5 years. In addition, emotion knowledge predicted fewer internalizing problems in CA children but predicted fewer externalizing problems in EA children. Thus, emotion knowledge was associated with psychosocial adjustment for both cultural groups, and particularly helpful for children to cope with issues to which they are most vulnerable in their respective cultural contexts. The findings shed critical light on the developmental trajectories of emotion understanding and psychosocial adjustment in specific cultural contexts.     

Mothers' and Fathers' Use of Internal State Talk with their Young Children

The present study extends previous results demonstrating a relation between maternal discourse and child social understanding to include paternal discourse. Emotion understanding (EU) and theory of mind (ToM) were considered as two distinctive aspects of social understanding. Participants were 106 children (54 boys and 52 girls) studied at 3.5 and 5 years. Discourse measures came from separate parent–child conversations during a picture‐book task; measures of EU and ToM came from children's performance on social cognition tasks. Differences in parental talk translated into important differences in the influence of each parent on children's social‐cognitive understanding. Mothers' references to emotion and emotion causal explanatory language predicted children's concurrent EU. Fathers' use of causal explanatory language referring to desires and emotions predicted children's concurrent and later ToM. These results highlight important differences between mothers and fathers in their use of internal state language and its impact on children's social‐cognitive understanding.     

Developmental deviations in happy victimization across early childhood predict behavioral adjustment in middle childhood

This study examined whether the development of happy victimizing (HV) from early to middle childhood predicted prosocial and aggressive behaviors 3 years later. Participants included 150 children (50% female, M_age at study onset = 4.53 years) and their parents at four annual time points. At each time point, semi-structured interviews were conducted to assess children's emotional expectations after committing hypothetical transgressions. Child and parent reports of children's prosocial behaviors and aggression were provided at the beginning and end of the study. Children who experienced faster declines in HV reported higher prosocial behaviors 3 years later, controlling for initial levels of prosocial behaviors. Children who exhibited increases or lesser declines in HV reported higher aggression at the study end. The development of HV was not related significantly to parent reports of prosocial behaviors and aggression in middle childhood. Findings confirm theorizing on the normative developmental trajectory of HV and suggest that deviations in HV across early childhood may partially explain later behavioral adjustment.     

The roles of caregivers and friends in adolescent daily emotion dynamics

Daily emotion dynamics provide valuable information about individuals’ emotion processes as they go about their lives. Emotion dynamics such as emotion levels (mean), emotion variability (degree of fluctuation), and emotion network density (strength of temporal connections among emotions) are associated with risks for various psychopathology in youth and adults. Prior work has shown that caregivers and friends play crucial socializing roles in adolescent emotional well-being, but less is known about their roles in daily emotion dynamics. This study examined whether caregiver emotion coaching, caregiver-adolescent closeness, and friendship quality were associated with adolescents’ emotion levels, emotion variability, and emotion network density. Further, we examined whether caregiver-adolescent closeness moderated the associations between coaching and emotion dynamics. Participants were 150 adolescents (61% girls; M_age = 14.75) and one of their caregivers (95% female; M_age = 43.35) who completed a baseline survey and 21 daily surveys. Results showed that caregiver emotion coaching interacted with caregiver-adolescent closeness in predicting emotion levels and variability. Specifically, when closeness was higher, emotion coaching was significantly associated with lower sadness and anger levels, higher happiness levels, and lower happiness variability. Caregiver emotion coaching, independent of closeness, was also associated with lower anxiety levels, lower sadness variability, and lower emotion network density. Friendship quality was significantly associated with lower levels of sadness, anxiety, and anger, higher levels of happiness, and lower variability in anxiety and anger. These findings suggest that caregivers and friends are central to everyday emotion levels and variability and a more flexible emotion system in adolescents.     

Maternal narration about parenting pride and regret is related to youth emotion regulation

As they respond to children's emotions, mothers socialize children's emerging emotion regulation. Mothers' own autobiographical narratives likely reflect in part habitual ways of expressing and managing emotions—ways that may in turn influence the way mothers respond to their children's emotions. We examined features of mothers' narratives about parental pride and regret experiences, and assessed whether these were associated with parental socialization of emotion and the emotion regulation repertoire of their children. Two hundred thirty‐seven mothers with children ranging from 8 to 17 years of age provided two narratives about parental pride and parental regret experiences. Parental emotion socialization and children's emotion regulation were assessed via self‐ and informant‐report using a multi‐measure, multi‐observer approach. We found that features of the way mothers narrated their experiences with a particular child related to their parenting of that child, and that child's emotion regulation. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for emotion‐related parenting, and the potential importance of parent narratives.     

Emotion understanding and maternal sensitivity as protective factors against hostile attribution bias in anger‐prone children

The present research examined children’s anger proneness, emotion understanding, and maternal sensitivity during toddlerhood as predictors of children’s hostile attribution bias (HAB) during the later preschool years. At 2.8 years (N = 128), maternal sensitivity (e.g., child‐centered behavior) was observed during mother–child play and snack, and parents reported on children’s anger proneness. At 3.3 years, emotion understanding (i.e., ability to identify emotional expressions accurately) was measured via an interactive puppet interview. At 4.8 and 5.4 years, children's HAB was assessed via child responses to hypothetical vignettes of ambiguous peer provocations. Path models revealed that maternal sensitivity predicted fewer hostile attributions. In addition, emotion understanding and maternal sensitivity emerged as buffers against the negative effect of anger proneness on HAB. Specifically, greater anger proneness was associated with more frequent hostile attributions, but only when children had lower emotion understanding or had mothers who were less sensitive. The findings highlight the interplay between intrapersonal and interpersonal factors in early childhood that contribute to a hostile attribution bias during the preschool period.     

Differentiating classroom climate concepts: Academic,management, and emotional environments

Abstract

Extensive research has validated the relationship between classroom climate and students’ social, motivational, and cognitive development. Despite improved methods of measurement, the construct itself is still nebulous and hard to delineate. One reason is that there are different dimensions to classroom climate. We examine the literature and suggest that there are three differentiable components: (1) academic, referring to pedagogical and curricular elements of the learning environment; (2) management, referring to discipline styles for maintaining order; and (3) emotional, the affective interactions within the classroom. While these components overlap, emotional climate is the least recognised or studied, and yet equally consequential. Based on our theoretical and empirical work we outline some of the characteristics of the emotional environment. We argue for the importance of treating emotional climate as a distinct aspect of classroom climate. As a concept, the emotional climate of the classroom is superordinate to other classroom climate domains, since it interfaces with the conventional academic and management elements of effective learning environments.     

The mediating role of coping self‐efficacy beliefs on the relationship between parental conflict and child psychological adjustment

The effect of parental conflict on children's psychological adjustment is variable. Coping self‐efficacy refers to a person's perceived ability to self‐motivate and access the required cognitive resources to take control of, or exert their coping efforts in a stressful situation. This study investigated the mediating role of children's coping self‐efficacy beliefs between parental conflict and children's psychological adjustment (internalizing, externalizing, anxiety, and prosocial behavior). The participants were 663 school students in grade 5 (M = 10.17 years, SD = .53) and grade 7 (M = 12.11 years, SD = .52). The ethnic composition of the sample was approximately 72% White, 20% Asian, 4% Middle Eastern, and 4% from other ethnic groups. Coping self‐efficacy for avoiding maladaptive cognitions mediated the effect of parental conflict on children's internalizing symptoms longitudinally. The higher the level of parental conflict, the lower the level of children's coping self‐efficacy for avoiding maladaptive cognitions and in turn the higher their levels of internalizing. These findings support the mediational role of children's coping self‐efficacy beliefs in the context of parental conflict. It is proposed that these beliefs should be considered in designing and implementing preventative interventions for children in the context of parental conflict.     

Linguistic indirectness in parent–preschooler reminiscing about emotion‐related events: Links with emotion regulation and psychosocial adjustment

The concept of linguistic indirectness is well established within the field of pragmatics, in which it has been observed that speakers express ideas directly and indirectly. We integrated the analysis of linguistic directness and indirectness with the examination of two established measures of parental emotion socialization through reminiscing: elaboration and emotion explanations. We examined the unique associations of parents’ direct and indirect elaboration and emotion explanations with preschoolers’ emotion regulation and psychosocial adjustment. Participants were 55 parent–preschooler dyads (31 girls, 24 boys). The dyads reminisced about positive and negative events. Conversations were coded for parental elaboration, parental use of emotion explanations, and parental linguistic directness and indirectness. Children's emotion regulation was observed during standard tasks, and teachers reported on children's psychosocial adjustment. Multivariate regressions including direct elaboration and direct emotion explanations indicated that parents who engaged in more indirect elaboration when discussing positive events had children with worse emotion regulation. Parents who used indirect emotion explanations when discussing positive events had children with better psychosocial adjustment. Parents’ indirect speech during negative event discussions was not related to child outcomes. The results suggest differential functions for indirect elaboration and indirect emotion explanations in relation to children's social outcomes, and support the utility of examining linguistic indirectness.     

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.     

Cultural differences in maternal emotion control values and children's expressive flexibility

Expressive flexibility is the ability to express or suppress one's emotions to meet the demands of the situation. Recent work suggests that expressive flexibility is associated with better adjustment. However, few studies have focused on expressive flexibility in children. In addition, there is a dearth of research on possible correlates, such as culture, parental emotion socialization, and socioeconomic status, that may be associated with expressive flexibility competencies in children. The purpose of this study was to investigate cultural differences in children's expressive flexibility, maternal emotion control values (ECVs), and their relations to family socioeconomic status (SES) during middle childhood in a sample of European American (N = 31, M age = 9.61 years; 54.8% males), Korean American (N = 38, M age = 9.16 years; 55.3% males) and South Korean children (N = 77, M age = 9.74 years; 51.9% males). Mothers reported on demographics and their emotion control values. Children's expressive flexibility ability was assessed using a lab-based observational measure. Multivariate analyses of covariance controlling for SES, child age, and gender suggested significant cultural differences in expressive flexibility, with the U.S. children (both European and Korean Americans) scoring higher on expressive flexibility compared to their South Korean counterparts. Results also suggested significant cultural differences regarding maternal ECVs; Korean Americans were more similar to South Koreans, both scoring higher on ECVs than European Americans. Socioeconomic status, but not maternal ECVs, were associated with children's expressive flexibility, independent of child age, sex, and culture.     

Cultural family beliefs,maternal sacrifice,and adolescent psychological competence in Chinese poor single‐mother families

Research on cultural family beliefs and family processes as protective factors of adolescent development is severely lacking in the Chinese culture. Based on 432 Chinese single‐mother families living in poverty in Hong Kong, the relationships among Chinese cultural beliefs of familism, adolescent perceived maternal sacrifice, and psychological competence (indexed by a clear and healthy identity, cognitive competence, and a positive future outlook) were examined. Results showed that adolescents' perceived maternal sacrifice mediated the influence between maternal Chinese cultural beliefs of familism and the psychological competence of adolescents raised in poor single‐mother families in Hong Kong. The present study underscores the importance of cultural family beliefs and parental sacrifice on nurturing adolescent psychological competence in Chinese single‐mother families living in poverty, which contributes to the construction of a family resilience model applicable to Chinese communities.     

Concurrent associations between mothers’ references to internal states and children’s social understanding in middle childhood

Although it is well established that features of maternal speech are associated with children’s social understanding in the preschool years, few studies explore this relationship in middle childhood. Within the context of a prospective longitudinal study of a representative community sample of families (subsample n = 207, mean age = 82.88 months), we investigated concurrent associations between mothers’ internal state language and aspects of 7‐year‐olds’ social understanding, including children’s understanding of belief and spontaneous references to internal states during free play. When sociodemographic, maternal, and child characteristics were controlled, mothers’ references to their own cognitions were associated with dimensions of children’s social understanding. Our findings suggest that exposure to others’ perspectives contributes to children’s advanced understanding of minds, which has implications for interventions that foster social understanding.     

Internationally adopted children's general and adoption‐specific stressors,coping strategies and psychological adjustment

We examined stress, coping and psychological adjustment of 68 children, aged 8–12, who were internationally adopted to Spain. Using the Kidcope, all children were asked about the most stressful general and adoption‐related problem they experienced and the use and effectiveness of various coping strategies when dealing with the problem. For all reported problems, the nature of the problem (personal, interpersonal, regarding others), the content, the degree of stress it created and its perceived controllability were analysed. Emotional and behavioural functionings were assessed with the Behaviour Assessment System for Children. About half of the children mentioned specific problems concerning the adoption, with inracial adoptees reporting less adoption‐related problems than transracial adoptees. For general and adoption‐related problems, interpersonal problems were mentioned most often. With regard to the content, ‘relationships’ and ‘victimization’ were mentioned most often for general and adoption‐related problems, respectively. Adoption‐related problems were appraised as less controllable. No differences emerged in terms of coping with general or adoption‐related problems except for ‘self‐criticism’. Overall, the children used many coping strategies and were generally well‐adjusted. Identifying the problems and coping strategies of adoptees is important in order to help these children and their families tackle these stressors.