Predictors of Children's Rights Attitudes and Psychological Well‐being Among Rural and Urban Mainland Chinese Adolescents

This study examined rural and urban Chinese adolescents’ (13–19 years, N = 395) attitudes toward children's self‐determination and nurturance rights, and how these attitudes relate to various dimensions of socialization in their family and school environments, including perceptions of parental and teacher autonomy support and responsiveness and family and school democratic climate. Relations between these variables and psychological well‐being also were examined. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that maternal responsiveness and teacher autonomy support predicted higher levels of endorsement of nurturance rights. Maternal autonomy support and tolerance of dissent at home predicted greater endorsement of self‐determination rights. Democratic climate in the home predicted higher life‐satisfaction and fewer depressive symptoms, even when parent and teacher autonomy support and responsiveness were controlled. Our findings suggest that environments that are structured more democratically and that are more responsive to children's autonomy needs are associated with higher levels of endorsement of children's rights and contribute to adolescents’ psychological health and well‐being in a non‐Western culture.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

Perceived Maternal Autonomy Support and Early Adolescent Emotion Regulation: A Longitudinal Study

This study investigated longitudinal associations between perceived maternal autonomy‐supportive parenting and early adolescents' use of three emotion regulation (ER) styles: emotional integration, suppressive regulation, and dysregulation. We tested whether perceived maternal autonomy support predicted changes in ER and whether these ER styles, in turn, related to changes in adjustment (i.e., depressive symptoms, self‐esteem). Participants (N = 311, mean age at Time 1 = 12.04) reported on perceived maternal autonomy support, their ER styles, and adjustment at two moments in time, spanning a one‐year interval. Cross‐lagged analyses showed that perceived maternal autonomy support predicted increases in emotional integration and decreases in suppressive regulation. By contrast, emotional dysregulation predicted decreases in perceived autonomy‐supportive parenting. Further, increases in emotional integration were predictive of increases in self‐esteem, and decreases in suppressive regulation were predictive of decreases in depressive symptoms. Together, the results show that early adolescents' perception of their mothers as autonomy‐supportive is associated with increases in adaptive ER strategies and subsequent adjustment.     

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.     

Psychological reactance and negative emotional reactions in the link between psychological control and adolescent adjustment

Researchers consistently report links between psychological control and adolescent behavior problems, but the processes linking psychological control with behavior problems are unclear. Adolescents’ negative emotional reactions and psychological reactance were tested as potential longitudinal mediators linking parental psychological control with both internalizing and externalizing behavior problems. Data were collected from a sample of 242 adolescents (M age = 15.4 at Time 1; 50.8% female; 50% white, non‐Hispanic, 18% African American, 16% Hispanic, and 16% of other or multiple ethnicities) at three time points over a 2‐year period. Adolescents self‐reported depressive symptoms, antisocial behavior, negative emotional reactions, and psychological reactance. Adolescents and their parents provided ratings of parental psychological control. Cross‐sectional models replicated patterns previously reported suggesting that negative emotional reactions and reactance mediate between psychological control and internalizing and externalizing behavior problems. However, in cross‐lagged panel models, neither negative emotional reactions nor reactance emerged as a mediator between psychological control and internalizing or externalizing problems. In contrast, results suggested that psychological control is an outcome of rather than contributor to, negative emotional reactions. Moreover, the addition of random intercepts to cross‐lagged models indicated that associations between psychological control, emotional and behavioral reactions, and internalizing/externalizing behavior may represent stable trait‐like patterns.     

Perceived Autonomy Support From Parents and Best Friends: Longitudinal Associations with Adolescents' Depressive Symptoms

According to the self‐determination theory, experiencing autonomy support in close relationships is thought to promote adolescents' well‐being. Perceptions of autonomy support from parents and from best friends have been associated with lower levels of adolescents' depressive symptoms. This longitudinal study examines the relative contribution of perceived autonomy support from parents and best friends in relation to adolescents' depressive symptoms and changes in these associations from early to late adolescence. Age and gender differences were also investigated. Questionnaires about mother, father, and a best friend were filled out by 923 early adolescents and 390 middle adolescents during five consecutive years, thereby covering an age range from 12 to 20. Multi‐group cross‐lagged path analysis revealed concurrent and longitudinal negative associations between perceived parental autonomy support and adolescents' depressive symptoms. No concurrent and longitudinal associations were found between perceived best friends' autonomy support and adolescents' depressive symptoms. Results were similar for early and middle adolescent boys and girls. Prevention and treatment programs should focus on the bidirectional interplay during adolescence between perceptions of parental autonomy support and adolescents' depressive symptoms.     

Cultural socialization of toddlers in emotionally charged situations

This study examined mothers’ responses to foster emotional competence from a cultural perspective. Fifty‐one European American, 52 Turkish, and 40 Romanian mothers of 2‐year‐old children provided open‐ended responses to vignettes of anger‐, sadness‐, fear‐, and happiness‐eliciting situations. Mothers’ responses were compared between the family models of independence (United States) and psychological interdependence (Turkey, Romania) to understand cultural variations. To anger, all mothers endorsed problem‐focused responses that emphasized teaching coping skills at similar rates, suggestive of an autonomy‐orientation. European American mothers also endorsed behaviorally oriented discipline to cope with anger independently more than Turks and Romanians, who endorsed reasoning and comforting responses more, reflecting a relatedness emphasis. To sadness, problem‐focused and comforting responses did not reveal cultural differences. Expected differences in reasoning and dismissive responses were partly supported. To fear, comforting was the dominant response, with the highest rate reported by European Americans. Turkish and Romanian mothers’ relative emphasis on reasoning was characteristic of their family model. In happy situations, European American mothers validated toddlers’ happiness most often, whereas Turkish mothers reported the escalation of happiness most often. Despite sharing the psychological interdependence model, differences in some responses to sadness, fear, and happiness were noted between Turkish and Romanian mothers.     

The Mental Health of Adolescent Girls with Depressed Mothers: The Mediating Role of the Perception of Parental Styles

Maternal depression, its effects on mothers’ interactions with their children, and the different mechanisms of emotional and psychological disorders’ transaction to children have been surveyed for the last few decades of research. The aim of this research was to find the mediating role of the perception of parental styles between the maternal depression symptoms and the mental health of their daughters. The participants included 284 mothers and their daughters from 8 different schools chosen randomly. Mothers completed the Beck Depression Inventory-II and examined using differential diagnosis interview based on DSM-V while adolescents completed the Parenting Style Questionnaire and Symptom Check List 90-R. The results showed the mediating role of the perception of authoritative and authoritarian styles of parenting (p?≥?0.0001). Also, depression symptoms in mothers could predict the perception of parental styles. Additionally, the perception of authoritative and authoritarian parenting could predict the mental health of adolescents.     

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.     

Fighting Fair: Adaptive Marital Conflict Strategies as Predictors of Future Adolescent Peer and Romantic Relationship Quality

This study examined the associations between reasoning during inter‐parental conflict and autonomous adolescent conflict negotiation with peers over time. Participants included 133 adolescents and their parents, peers, and romantic partners in a multi‐method, multiple reporter, longitudinal study. Inter‐parental reasoning at adolescent age of 13 predicted greater autonomy and relatedness in observed adolescent–peer conflict one year later and lower levels of autonomy undermining during observed romantic partner conflict five years later. Inter‐parental reasoning also predicted greater satisfaction and affection in adolescent romantic relationships seven years later. Findings suggest that autonomy‐promoting behaviors exhibited in the inter‐parental context may influence adolescents' own more autonomous approaches to subsequent peer and romantic conflict. Possible explanatory models are discussed, including social learning theory and attachment theory.     

Parent emotion socialization and children's socioemotional adjustment: when is supportiveness no longer supportive?

Parents' supportive emotion socialization behaviors promote children's socioemotional competence in early childhood, but the nature of parents' supportiveness may change over time, as children continue to develop their emotion‐related abilities and enter contexts that require more complex and nuanced social skills and greater autonomy. To test whether associations between parents' supportiveness of children's negative emotions and children's socioemotional adjustment vary with child age, 81 parents of 3‐ to 6‐year‐old children completed questionnaires assessing their responses to children's negative emotions and their children's emotion regulation, lability, social competence, and behavioral adjustment. As predicted, child age moderated the associations between parents' supportiveness and children's socioemotional adjustment. For younger children, parents' supportiveness predicted better emotion regulation and less anxiety/internalizing and anger/externalizing problems. However, for older children, these associations were reversed, suggesting that socialization strategies which were supportive for younger children may fail to foster socioemotional competence among 5‐ to 6‐year‐old children. These results suggest the importance of considering emotion socialization as a dynamic, developmental process, and that parents' socialization of children's emotions might need to change in response to children's developing emotional competencies and social demands.     

Traumatic Stress Symptoms in Children Exposed to Intimate Partner Violence: The Role of Parent Emotion Socialization and Children's Emotion Regulation Abilities

Exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV) is a traumatic life event. Almost 50 percent of IPV‐exposed children show subsequent post‐traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS), and they are at increased risk for depression. We examined maternal emotion socialization and children's emotion regulation as a pathway that may protect IPV‐exposed children from developing PTSS and depression. Fifty‐eight female survivors of IPV and their 6‐ to 12‐year‐old children participated. Results showed no direct relations between maternal emotion socialization and child adjustment. However, several indirect effects were observed. Higher mother awareness and acceptance of sadness and awareness of fear predicted better child sadness and fear regulation, respectively, which in turn was related to fewer child PTSS. Similar indirect pathways were found with child depression. In addition, mothers’ acceptance and coaching of anger was associated with better child anger regulation, which related to fewer depression symptoms. Implications for prevention and intervention with high‐risk families are discussed.     

Child Anger Regulation, Parental Responses to Children's Anger Displays, and Early Child Antisocial Behavior

The display and regulation of child anger in family interaction was coded in a sample of 240 boys and girls at child age 6, and coded using the Specific Affect Coding System. Child antisocial behavior was longitudinally assessed, beginning in kindergarten. Pooled‐ and family‐level analyses were used to assess hazard rates for child anger. Parents’ ability to modulate their own emotions and negative behavior, and children's ability to down‐regulate anger were associated with increased latency for child anger. Hazard for child anger increased as parents’ insensitive and negative responses toward the child cumulated during family interaction. Macro‐level, non‐hazard analyses indicated that chronic levels of child antisocial behavior were associated with the frequency of parental negative behavior, but not with the frequency of child anger. Micro‐level hazard analyses indicated that children's ability to regulate anger was related to chronic levels of child covert but not overt antisocial behavior.     

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.     

Parenting distress and parental investment of Hong Kong Chinese parents with a child having an emotional or behavioural problem: a qualitative study

This qualitative study aims to understand the parenting distress and parental investment of Hong Kong Chinese parents with a child having an emotional or behavioural problem. The parents of 24 children and adolescents who sought psychiatric consultation within the study period were interviewed using open‐ended questions. The data revealed a vicious reciprocal interaction in which the symptoms affected the parents’ psychosocial well‐being, which in turn impacted unfavourably on the identified patient. With three exceptions, the parents in this study had engaged in different activities prior to the psychiatric consultation, including information search, changes in the methods of parenting, attempts to reduce family stress, reliance on superstitious beliefs, and reaching out for professional help and social services. The parental investment indicated parents’ resilience in facing the child’s problems. Implications for service development and social work intervention are discussed.     

Differential effects of parental control on preschool-age adjustment depending on child effortful control

This study examined whether parental control differentially predicted children's effortful control and adjustment depending on children's levels of executive control and delay ability. Using longitudinal data, the study included 241 preschool-age children and their mothers. Fifty-seven percent of the sample was lower income and included 64% White, 10% Latino/Hispanic, 9% Black, 3% Asian-American, 2% Native or American Indian, and 12% multiple racial/ethnic backgrounds. Interactions between aspects of parental and child control at 3-years-old were tested as predictors of mother-reported child effortful control at 4.5 years and teacher-reported adjustment at 5.5 years. Children's early levels of executive control and delay ability moderated the relations of some forms of parental control with child outcomes, although several hypothesized interactions were nonsignificant. Low parental autonomy respect predicted higher externalizing for children initially high in executive control but predicted lower externalizing for children initially low in executive control. Conversely, high autonomy respect predicted higher impulsivity for children low in delay ability but higher social competence for children high in delay ability. Finally, low maternal negative control predicted higher internalizing for children low in delay ability, whereas it predicted higher internalizing for children high in delay ability. These findings suggest that in some cases the type and degree of parental control should match a child's level of effortful control to support their social, emotional, and behavioral adjustment optimally.