Mothers' Self-Reported Control of Their Preschool Children's Emotional Expressiveness: A Longitudinal Study of Associations with Infant–Mother Attachment and Children's Emotion Regulation

In the present longitudinal study we examined the associations between mothers’ self‐reported control of their preschoolers’ emotional expressiveness and two other key facets of early socioemotional development: the quality of the infant–mother attachment and children's emotion regulation. Seventy‐six white preschool‐aged children (46 boys and 30 girls) and their mothers participated. Principal assessments included the Parent Attitude Toward Child Expressiveness Scale (PACES; Saarni, 1985 ), the infant Strange Situation, and ‘Beat the Bell,’ a measure designed for this study to elicit children's emotional expression, sharing, and suppression in the presence of their mothers. Mothers’ control of their children's expressiveness was associated with both attachment and children's emotion regulation in theoretically predicted ways. First, mothers of children who had been classified insecure‐avoidant in the Strange Situation reported greater control of their children's negative expressiveness than other mothers, and mothers of children who had been classified insecure‐ambivalent reported less control of their children's negative expressiveness than other mothers. Second, mothers who reported greater control of their children's expressiveness had children who were less likely to express and share their feelings and more likely to suppress their anger in the ‘Beat the Bell’ emotion regulation assessment. Findings are discussed in terms of the role of maternal emotion socialization in children's early socioemotional development.     

Sibling Relationships and Social-emotional Adjustment in Different Family Contexts

The aims of this study were to examine family type (nonstep, stepfather, stepmother, and single mother) and sibling type (full‐ and half‐siblings) differences in sibling relationship quality (positivity and negativity), and to investigate links between sibling relationship quality and child externalizing and internalizing problems. The sample included 192 families with a 5‐year‐old target child and an older sibling. In addition, 80 of these families included a third older child. Mothers and the older siblings (8 years and older) completed questionnaires and interviews regarding conflict and support in their sibling relationships, and parents and teachers reported on each child's social‐emotional adjustment. Sibling negativity (conflict, aggression) was highest in single‐mother families and full‐siblings were more negative than half‐ and stepsiblings. There was some evidence that sibling antagonism was associated with more child behavioral and emotional problems, but these effects were moderated by family type.     

Mother and Child Reports of Preschool Children's Social Support Networks: Network Correlates of Peer Acceptance

This study examined the relations between characteristics of preschool children's social support networks and peer acceptance. Mothers and their children completed network interviews that assessed structural features of the child's network, the actual performance of supportive behaviors across four support domains (daily maintenance, occasional maintenance, emotional support, recreation), and the perceived closeness of the relationships between children and network members. Mothers tended to identify broader networks than did their children, and both maternal and child reports of the number of males included in the network were significant correlates of peer acceptance. A gender effect was also revealed suggesting that boys' networks included more male members than those of girls whereas girls mentioned more females as network members than did boys. Further analyses indicated that maternal reports of enacted emotional support, network size for emotional and recreational support and perceived closeness to network members were positively associated with peer acceptance measures. Child reports of the number of network members with whom he/she had a ‘special relationship’ and enjoyed spending time were correlated positively with peer acceptance. Multiple regression analyses revealed that network variables accounted for significant proportions of variance in peer acceptance measures.     

Family Emotional Processes and Adolescents' Adjustment

This study examined associations between parents' emotion coaching and emotional expressiveness, and adolescents' internalizing and externalizing symptoms. The sample included 131 16‐year‐olds and their mothers and fathers. Adolescents completed an open‐ended interview about their parents' emotion coaching. Adolescents rated parents' negative emotional expressiveness, and parents and adolescents reported on adolescents' adjustment. Results indicated that mothers were more accepting and supportive of their children's expression of negative emotions than were fathers. Parents' coaching of emotions was associated with fewer adolescents' internalizing symptoms and was unrelated to their externalizing symptoms. Parents' negative emotional expressiveness was positively linked to adolescents' internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Parents' emotion coaching and negative emotional expressiveness explained unique variance in adolescents' internalizing symptoms. Results highlight the importance of the family's emotional climate for adolescents' well‐being.     

Mothers' Typical and Event-Specific Positive Expressions Influence Children's Memory for Events

Mothers (N=67) taught their preschool children crafts while varying emotional expressions (delight, irritation). Mothers’ typical expressive styles were assessed by questionnaire. After three weeks, children's memory was assessed with a free‐recall interview followed by re‐enactment of craft‐making with an interviewer. Children of mothers high in positive expressiveness had more elaborate recall when mothers expressed delight rather than irritation. Children of mothers low in positive expressiveness re‐enacted more event details when their mothers were less varied in expression rather than expressive of emotion in general or delight in particular, and had more elaborate recall when their mothers expressed irritation rather than delight. Findings suggest that children remember more when their mother's emotional expressions during an event fit her typical style.     

Caregiver Emotional Expressiveness,Child Emotion Regulation,and Child Behavior Problems among Head Start Families

The present study examined the relationships between caregivers' self‐reported positive and negative emotional expressiveness, observer assessments of children's emotion regulation, and teachers' reports of children's internalizing and externalizing behaviors in a sample of 97 primarily African American and Hispanic Head Start families. Results indicated that higher caregiver negativity and lower child emotion regulation independently predicted more internalizing behavior problems in children. Additionally, children's externalizing behavior problems were negatively predicted by caregivers' self‐reports of positive emotional expressiveness. Importantly, results also suggested that caregivers' emotional expressiveness and children's behavioral problems may be non‐linearly related, and that child gender may play an important moderating role. These results emphasize the importance of family emotional climate and child emotion regulation in the behavioral development of preschool‐age children, and highlight the need for improved theoretical and practical understanding of socioemotional development in diverse populations.     

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.     

Does It Matter if Preschool Children and Mothers Discuss Positive vs. Negative Events During Reminiscing? Links with Mother‐reported Attachment,Family Emotional Climate,and Socioemotional Development

The purpose of the study was to examine the differential relations between mother–child reminiscing about a positive emotional event vs. a negative emotional event and attachment security, family climate, and young children's socioemotional development. Fifty preschool children (M age = 50.69 months, SD = 4.64) and their mothers completed two reminiscing conversations at the laboratory, which were coded for emotion‐laden discourse, affect, and elaboration, and children completed measures of emotional understanding and representations of relationships. At their homes, mothers completed the attachment Q‐sort and the self‐report family inventory. Both attachment security and family climate were related to the quality of mother–child affect and maternal elaboration during both positive and negative reminiscing conversations. Attachment security and family climate, however, were principally related to discussion of emotion during the negative event discussions. In addition, it was mother–child reminiscing about the negative emotional event that was associated with high levels of children's socioemotional development.     

Children's Interpretations of Ambiguous Provocation From Their Siblings: Comparisons With Peers and Links to Relationship Quality

This study investigated how six‐ to eight‐year‐old children interpret ambiguous provocation from their siblings. In particular, we examined how children's attributions of their siblings' intent (1) differed from those for their peers, (2) varied as a function of the structural features of the sibling relationship, and (3) were associated with the affective qualities of the sibling relationship. A total of 121 children were presented with ambiguous provocation scenarios in which three groups of agemates were described as the perpetrators of harm (siblings, friends, and disliked peers). Scenarios were designed to assess children's attributions of hostile, instrumental, and accidental intent. Children attributed more hostile intent to disliked peers than to siblings and less hostile intent to friends than to siblings. Accidental and instrumental intent attributions were equally likely for friends and siblings but less common for disliked peers. Children attributed more hostile intent to older siblings, and more instrumental intent to laterborn siblings who were chronologically younger. Children's attributions of siblings' intent were related to both parents' and children's reports of the affective features of siblings' interactions. Results provide new insight into how children's construals of others' actions are grounded in the unique features of their relationships with particular interaction partners.     

Family Relations and the Adjustment of Young Children of Mexican Descent: Do Family Cultural Values Moderate These Associations?

This study examined the role of family cultural values as moderators of the association between family relations and the adjustment of young children. Fifty‐five families of Mexican descent with young children enrolled in Head Start programs in the Southwest participated. Mothers provided information about closeness of the mother–child relationship, warmth in the sibling relationship, child behavior problems, and familism and simpatía, or two cultural values associated with families of Mexican origin. The children's preschool teachers provided information about child emotional adjustment and social functioning with peers six months later. Familism was found to act as a moderator, whereby warmth and closeness in family relationships coupled with the endorsement of a family cultural value that complements these relationship characteristics was associated with more optimal functioning in preschool classrooms. Results demonstrate the need to evaluate family cultural values or beliefs systems in conjunction with qualities of family relationships as determinants of children's developmental outcomes. Specifically, familism emerged as a family characteristic capable of promoting young children's adjustment within and beyond the family context.     

Siblings as Confidants: Emotional Understanding, Relationship Warmth, and Sibling Self-Disclosure

Associations among (a) self-disclosures between early adolescent siblings, (b) emotional understanding, and (c) relationship warmth were investigated. Grade 5–6 children (M age = 11.5 years) were interviewed concerning the incidence of disclosures to closest-in-age siblings (20 = older, 20 = younger), feelings regarding disclosing (or not), and sibling relationship quality. Warmth was measured with the Sibling Relationship Questionnaire (Furman & Buhrmester, 1985) and emotional understanding was assessed with the Hypothetical Relationships Picture Task (adapted from Schneider, 1989, & Aquan-Assee, 1992). Hierarchical multiple regressions indicated self-disclosure was positively associated with feeling good about sharing and negatively associated with reports of not trusting or not receiving emotional support from their sibling. Sibling relationship warmth was a key characteristic associated with both emotional understanding and self-disclosure; female target children demonstrated greater emotional understanding. Warmth, but not emotional understanding, was associated with self-disclosure. Findings are discussed in light of the importance of links between affective relationships and children's social-emotional understanding.     

Getting Along or Getting Your Own Way: The Development of Young Children's Use of Argument in Conflicts with Mother and Sibling

The development of children's use of argument in conflicts with their mother and sibling during their fourth vear, a period of marked changes in their understanding of others, was studied in 49 children observed at home with their mothers and siblings at 33 and 47 months. Children's use of reasoned argument in conflict increased: however, the proportion used for conciliation and compromise decreased, and children used justifications increasingly to support their own position. Mothers, hut not siblings, changed in parallel to the children over this period. Both the initiator of a dispute and children's expression of affect were related to children's use of argument; children used less reasoned argument when they were upset. Results are discussed in relation to differences in the development of children's relationships with mother and sibling and the importance of the link between affective expression and the use of argument in family disputes.     

The Role of Child Emotionality in Child Behavior and Maternal Instruction on Planning Tasks

This study explored the relation of children's emotional functioning to children's behavior during individual planning and mother's and children's behaviors during joint planning. Participants were 118 mothers and their second‐grade children. Mothers rated children on their emotional intensity and children rated themselves on their use of emotion regulation strategies. Children and mother–child dyads were videotaped during planning tasks and independent observers rated their behavior. Child emotional intensity was directly related to children being less engaged in the task and to an emphasis in maternal instruction on regulatory behaviors. Some types of emotion regulation strategies modified these relations. Findings suggest that child emotionality may play an important role in the early school years in children's opportunities to learn during social‐cognitive activity.     

Do expressive mothers have expressive children? The role of socialization in children's affect expression

The effects of maternal expressiveness and children's gender on children's nonverbal expressiveness were assessed in two settings. In the laboratory, 30 boys and 30 girls of kindergarten age were unobtrusively videotaped while talking about happy, sad, and fearful experiences and while experiencing three social situations designed to elicit happy, disappointed, and apprehensive feelings. Videotapes were rated for emotion expression, using global ratings and EMFACS codes. In school, teachers rated these children's expression of four discrete emotions. In both the laboratory and school settings children were more positively expressive than negatively so, and positive and negative expressiveness were unrelated. In the laboratory children's positive expressiveness was consistent across the three social situations, but negative expressiveness varied across affective context. In both settings, children of low-expressive mothers were more positively expressive than children of high-expressive mothers, who tended to be more negatively expressive than children of low-expressive mothers. The difference in negative expression appeared most striking for anger. Gender was not predictive of children's expressiveness in either setting     

Longitudinal relations between behavioral inhibition and social information processing: Moderating role of maternal supportive reactions to children's emotions

Utilizing multiple measures of interpretive biases, the current study examined the roles of toddlers’ behavioral inhibition (BI) and maternal supportive reactions to children's negative emotions in relation to children's interpretive biases across middle to late childhood. Toddlers’ BI was measured during several laboratory tasks (n = 248) at 2 and 3 years of age. Mothers reported on their reactions to children's negative emotional expressions when children were 7 years old (n = 203), and children's interpretations of social cues were assessed at 7 and 10 years of age (n s = 179 and 161, respectively). Toddlers with high levels of BI expressed less positivity toward social engagement with unfamiliar peers during discussion of ambiguous social situations. Further, children with high BI were less likely to attribute the cause of negative social situations to external factors, particularly when mothers were less accepting of children's negative emotional displays. Findings are discussed in terms of cognition related to the interpretation of ambiguous and threat‐related social situations among temperamentally at‐risk children.     

Mutual Positive Emotion with Peers,Emotion Knowledge,and Preschoolers' Peer Acceptance

Preschool children's emotion knowledge was examined as a possible mediator of the link between their mutual positive emotional expressiveness with peers and peer acceptance. Data were collected from 122 preschool children (57 boys, 65 girls; 86 European American, 9 African American, 17 Hispanic, and 10 other ethnicity; M age = 57.61 months) over a period of 2 years. In year 1 observations were made of children's emotional expressiveness with peers, and children completed sociometric interviews. In year 2, children completed emotion knowledge interviews and sociometric interviews. Analyses revealed that children who expressed more mutual positive emotion with peers in year 1 were better liked by peers in year 2, after controlling for year 1 peer acceptance. Mutual positive emotion in year 1 was associated with children's emotion knowledge in year 2. Both year 1 mutual positive emotion and year 2 emotion knowledge made independent contributions to peer acceptance in year 2.     

Shared Understanding of Parental Differential Treatment in Families

This study examined the extent to which children and parents have concordant views about parental differential treatment (PDT) and whether such concordance is linked with variations in sibling relationship quality. Seventy‐four 11‐ to 13‐year‐old children, their older siblings, and their parents were interviewed about their experiences with PDT and the quality of the children’s sibling relationships. Levels of agreement about the magnitude, direction, and fairness of PDT were generally low to moderate. However, sibling agreement about the magnitude of parental differential affection and the fairness of maternal control and affection were associated with more positive sibling relationships. Whereas family members were more likely to agree that parental behaviors were fair when they were concordant about the extent to which differential affection occurred, agreement about controlling behaviors was associated with lower levels of agreement about fairness. In addition, the frequency of family discussions about parental behaviors was not linked to shared perceptions of fairness. Results emphasize that capturing the multiple perspectives of family members is crucial for obtaining a comprehensive portrayal of family relationships.     

Parent Characteristics and Early Coparenting Behavior at the Transition to Parenthood

This study examined parent characteristics as correlates of coparenting behavior in 57 primiparous couples. Parents' negative emotionality and perceptions of maternal acceptance in childhood, mothers' beliefs about fathers' roles, and observed marital behavior and family socioeconomic status were assessed during the third trimester of pregnancy, and coparenting behavior was observed at 3.5 months postpartum. Couples who exhibited high‐quality marital interaction showed higher supportive coparenting behavior, but couples who showed lower quality marital interaction demonstrated higher supportive coparenting behavior when mothers held more progressive beliefs about fathers' roles. Couples showed more undermining coparenting behavior when family socioeconomic status was lower and when fathers were higher on negative emotionality. Greater perceived maternal acceptance in childhood was only associated with lower levels of undermining behavior when prenatal marital interaction was high in quality. Thus, the characteristics of both parents, especially in combination with preexisting marital behavior, are important determinants of coparenting behavior.     

The Role of the Family Context in the Development of Emotion Regulation

This article reviews current literature examining associations between components of the family context and children and adolescents' emotion regulation (ER). The review is organized around a tripartite model of familial influence. Firstly, it is posited that children learn about ER through observational learning, modeling and social referencing. Secondly, parenting practices specifically related to emotion and emotion management affect ER. Thirdly, ER is affected by the emotional climate of the family via parenting style, the attachment relationship, family expressiveness and the marital relationship. The review ends with discussions regarding the ways in which child characteristics such as negative emotionality and gender affect ER, how socialization practices change as children develop into adolescents, and how parent characteristics such as mental health affect the socialization of ER.     

The Role of Child Emotional Responsiveness and Maternal Negative Emotion Expression in Children's Coping Strategy Use

This study examined the additive and interactive effects of children's trait vicarious emotional responsiveness and maternal negative emotion expression on children's use of coping strategies. Ninety‐five children (mean age = 5.87 years) and their mothers and teachers participated in the study. The mothers reported on their own negative emotion expression and the children's empathic concern and personal distress tendencies. The mothers and teachers reported on the children's use of avoidant, support‐seeking, and aggressive‐venting coping strategies. Empathic concern was positively associated with the children's use of support seeking and negatively associated with the children's use of aggressive venting, whereas personal distress showed the opposite pattern of associations. Maternal negative emotion expression moderated some associations between the children's emotional responsiveness and coping. These findings support the hypothesis that children's tendencies to experience empathic concern or personal distress indicate functionally distinct styles of emotional arousal that may have broader consequences for socially competent behavior in response to normative stressors.