Emotional Climate in Families Experiencing Homelessness: Associations with Child Affect and Socioemotional Adjustment in School

This study examined associations among family‐level risks, emotional climate, and child adjustment in families experiencing homelessness. Emotional climate, an indirect aspect of emotion socialization, was indexed by parents’ expressed emotion while describing their children. Sociodemographic risk and parent internalizing distress were hypothesized to predict more negativity and less warmth in the emotional climate. Emotional climate was expected to predict observer‐rated child affect and teacher‐reported socioemotional adjustment, mediating effects of risk. Participants were 138 homeless parents (64 percent African‐American) and their four‐ to six‐year‐old children (43.5 percent male). During semi‐structured interviews, parents reported demographic risks and internalizing distress and completed a Five Minute Speech Sample about their child, later rated for warmth and negativity. Children's positive and negative affect were coded from videotapes of structured parent‐child interaction tasks. Socioemotional adjustment (externalizing behavior, peer acceptance, and prosocial behavior) was reported by teachers a few months later. Hypotheses were partially supported. Parent internalizing distress was associated with higher parent negativity, which was linked to more negative affect in children, and parent warmth was associated with children's positive affect. Neither emotional climate nor child affect predicted teacher‐reported externalizing behavior or peer acceptance, but parental negativity and male sex predicted lower prosocial behavior in the classroom. Future research directions and clinical implications are discussed.     

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.     

Marital Conflict and Children's Adjustment: Parental Hostility and Children's Interpretations as Mediators

The associations between marital conflict, maternal and paternal hostility, children's interpretations of marital conflict, and children's adjustment were examined in a sample of 136 school‐aged children and their parents. Observational measures were collected from videotapes of marital interaction and family interaction. Self‐report data were collected from parents and children. Results showed that mothers’ and fathers’ hostility mediated the association between martial conflict and children's internalizing and externalizing behavior problems. Children's feelings of being to blame for marital conflict and being threatened by it mediated between marital conflict and children's internalizing problems but not their externalizing problems.     

Prosocial Tendencies among Chinese American Children in Immigrant Families: Links to Cultural and Socio‐demographic Factors and Psychological Adjustment

The present study examined relations between prosocial tendencies (dispositional sympathy and prosocial behavior) and psychological adjustment using a multi‐method and multi‐informant approach in a socioeconomically diverse sample of first‐ and second‐generation Chinese American children from immigrant families (N = 238, M age = 9.2 years). We tested the concurrent associations between: (a) children's dispositional sympathy (rated by parents, teachers, and children, and observed prosocial behavior), (b) psychological adjustment (parent‐ and teacher‐reported externalizing problems and social competence); and (c) cultural and socio‐demographic factors (children's Chinese and American orientations, family Socioeconomic Status (SES), only child status, and children's age, sex, and social desirability). Results from correlations and structural equation modeling suggested that different measures of prosocial tendencies related differently to children's psychological adjustment. Parent‐ and teacher‐rated sympathy were associated with higher child social competence and lower externalizing problems within, but not across, reporter. By contrast, child‐rated sympathy was associated with higher teacher‐rated social competence, and observed prize donation was associated with lower teacher‐rated externalizing problems. Different measures of prosocial tendencies also showed different relations to cultural and socio‐demographic factors. These findings suggest that prosocial tendencies are not a unitary construct in Chinese American immigrant children: the manifestations of prosocial tendencies and their adjustment implications might depend on the context and/or targets of these tendencies.     

Parental emotion regulation strategies and parenting quality predict child internalizing symptoms in families experiencing homelessness

Adaptive emotion regulation (ER) in parents has been linked to better parenting quality and social–emotional adjustment in children from middle‐income families. In particular, early childhood may represent a sensitive period in which parenting behaviors and functioning have large effects on child social–emotional adjustment. However, little is known about how parent ER and parenting are related to child adjustment in high‐risk families. In the context of adversity, parents may struggle to maintain positive parenting behaviors and adaptive self‐regulation strategies which could jeopardize their children's adjustment. The current study investigated parents' own cognitive ER strategies and observed parenting quality in relation to young children's internalizing and externalizing problems among families experiencing homelessness. Participants included 108 primary caregivers and their 4–6‐year‐old children residing in emergency shelters. Using multiple methods, parenting and parent ER were assessed during a shelter stay and teachers subsequently provided ratings of children's internalizing and externalizing difficulties in the classroom. Parenting quality was expected to predict fewer classroom internalizing and externalizing behaviors as well as moderate the association between parent ER strategies and child outcomes. Results suggest that parenting quality buffered the effects of parent maladaptive ER strategies on child internalizing symptoms. The mediating role of parenting quality on that association was also investigated to build on prior empirical work in low‐risk samples. Parenting quality did not show expected mediating effects. Findings suggest that parents experiencing homelessness who use fewer maladaptive cognitive ER strategies and more positive parenting behaviors may protect their children against internalizing problems.     

Affective Social Competence and Teacher–child Relationship Quality: Race/Ethnicity and Family Income Level as Moderators

This study examined whether race/ethnicity and family income level moderated associations between children's affective social competence and teacher–child relationships among 132 Black, White, and Latino preschoolers. Boys and girls were equally represented in the sample. Of the three racial/ethnic groups, Latino children scored lowest on emotion regulation, were less close to their teachers, and experienced more teacher–child conflict and dependence. In contrast, Black children had closer, less conflict‐laden, and less dependent teacher–child relationships than children of other racial/ethnic backgrounds. Emotion regulation served as a protective factor against problematic teacher–child relationships, particularly for Latino and Black children compared with high‐income White children. Emotion regulation was positively associated with teacher–child closeness for Black children. However, it was negatively associated with teacher–child conflict for Latino children, regardless of income. For all outcomes, teacher characteristics accounted highly for the differences in teacher–child relational quality. Findings are discussed in terms of the functional role of emotions for teacher–child relationships and suggest important contextual influences on the associations.     

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.     

Parental Reactions to Toddlers' Negative Emotions and Child Negative Emotionality as Correlates of Problem Behavior at the Age of Three

Parent‐reported reactions to children's negative emotions and child negative emotionality were investigated as correlates of internalizing and externalizing behaviors. Children (N = 107) and their parents participated in a short‐term longitudinal study of social development. Mothers and fathers independently completed questionnaires assessing parental reactions to their child's negative emotions and child negative emotionality at Time 1 (33 months) and child behavior problems at Time 2 (39 months). Child negative emotionality was significantly related to greater internalizing and externalizing behavior. Maternal and paternal punitive reactions were related to greater internalizing behavior, but only for boys with high levels of negative emotionality. Results indicate that child temperament and child gender may be important moderators of the relation between parental emotion socialization and child internalizing problems during the toddler and early preschool years.     

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.     

Causes and consequences of childhood poverty in Korea: a panel data analysis

This study examines the causes and effects of childhood poverty in Korea using longitudinal data from the Seoul Child Panel Study. In the study, we find that not living with two parents or full-time employed parents are significant risk factors for child poverty in Korea. We also find that poverty is a risk factor lowering children's school achievement, and that family process factors such as family relation and parental monitoring are strongly related to children's internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors. The article concludes by suggesting policy approaches to reduce child poverty and the negative impact of poverty on children's development.     

Parental Emotion Coaching and Child Emotion Regulation as Protective Factors for Children with Oppositional Defiant Disorder

We assessed linkages of mothers' emotion coaching and children's emotion regulation and emotion lability/negativity with children's adjustment in 72 mother–child dyads seeking treatment for oppositional defiant disorder (ODD). Dyads completed the questionnaires and discussed emotion‐related family events. Maternal emotion coaching was associated with children's emotion regulation, which in turn was related to higher mother‐reported adaptive skills, higher child‐reported internalizing symptoms, and lower child‐reported adjustment. When children were high in emotion lability/negativity, mothers' emotion coaching was associated with lower mother and child reports of externalizing behavior. Results suggest the role of emotion regulation and emotion lability in child awareness of socio‐emotional problems and support the potential of maternal emotion coaching as a protective factor for children with ODD, especially for those high in emotion lability.     

Exploring dyadic teacher–child interactions,emotional security,and task engagement in preschool children displaying externalizing behaviors

Based on attachment theory, we tested whether the link between dyadic teacher–child interactions and task engagement operates through a child's security with the teacher. In a sample of preschoolers (N = 470) rated by their teachers as exhibiting elevated disruptive behaviors, the quality of dyadic teacher–child interactions and children's security were observed using a standardized task. Children's engagement with tasks was both observed in the preschool classroom and rated by the teacher. Results indicated that the quality of teacher–child dyadic interactions was associated directly with teacher‐reported task engagement, and indirectly associated, through a child's security, with observed task engagement. We discussed the contribution of these findings to our understanding of how the quality of dyadic teacher–child interactions may serve to regulate children's behavior in the classroom for children whose teachers perceive them as displaying early externalizing behaviors.     

Diathesis stress or differential susceptibility? testing longitudinal associations between parenting,temperament, and children's problem behavior

In this study we investigated longitudinal associations among parenting, children's temperamental negative affectivity, and internalizing and externalizing behavior. Second, we tested whether findings confirmed the diathesis‐stress model or differential susceptibility theory when conducting stringent interaction tests. The sample included 129 children and their families. Parenting quality (age 5) was measured by parent–child interaction observations. Parents evaluated child negative affectivity (age 7) and teachers reported on problem behavior (age 12). Multiple regression analyses revealed an interaction effect of negative affectivity and parenting on externalizing behavior. Visual inspection suggested ‘for better and for worse’ effects of parenting for children with negative affectivity. However, more stringent tests failed to show convincing evidence for differential susceptibility theory. For internalizing behavior, negative affectivity may render children vulnerable regardless of parenting. Our results point at the importance of further testing interaction effects to distinguish between differential susceptibility theory and the diathesis‐stress model.     

Family functioning and emotion socialization in Chinese two-parent households: A person-centered approach

The current study adopted cluster analysis as a person-centered approach to identify patterns of Chinese families’ functioning and parents’ emotion socialization responses and investigate their associations with children's emotion regulation and behavioral outcomes. Both parents residing in the same family were included to explore joint contributions of mothers and fathers within the family system. Participants were 204 Chinese two-parent (mother and father) households of 5- to 10-year-old children (M_age = 7.43 years, SD = .81; 98 girls). Both parents filled out online questionnaires about their perceptions of family functioning (cohesion, adaptability) and endorsement of responses to children's negative emotions (supportive, nonsupportive). Mothers also reported children's lability/negativity, emotion regulation, problematic behaviors (internalizing, externalizing) and prosocial behaviors. Five clusters were identified: poor-functioning/dismissing, well-functioning/coaching, engaged fathers, engaged mothers, and balanced/diffuse. Overall, poor-functioning/dismissing families had children with the lowest functioning and well-functioning/coaching families had children with the most optimal outcomes. The other three clusters were moderate in terms of child functioning with children of engaged fathers having less optimal outcomes than the other two. The nuanced variations among clusters and meaning of results are discussed in relation to Chinese cultural contexts. Findings support the utility of a person-centered approach for illuminating how parents’ socialization practices interconnect holistically within dynamic family systems.     

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.     

Maternal responses to negative emotions and child externalizing behavior: Different relations for 5‐, 6‐, and 7‐year‐olds

Emotional and behavioral maturity expectations increase as children transition to primary school; thus, maternal responses that support and encourage children's expression of negative emotion may not benefit school‐age children as much as preschoolers. The current study explored a change in the utility of these maternal responses among 187 families (62 5‐year‐olds, 75 6‐year‐olds, and 50 7‐year‐olds). Mothers reported on their responses to children's negative emotions and children's externalizing and internalizing behaviors at two time points over 1 year. Multiple group analysis within cross‐lagged path models revealed a positive association between non‐supportive maternal responses and later child externalizing behaviors among 5‐year‐olds. However, non‐supportive responses were related to decreases in externalizing behaviors among the 7‐year‐olds. Discrepant findings between the 5‐ and 7‐year‐olds may represent a developmental shift in the function of mothers' emotion socialization practices.     

Prosocial Behavior: Long‐term Trajectories and Psychosocial Outcomes

This study investigated developmental trajectories for prosocial behavior for a sample followed from the age of 10–18 and examined possible adjustment outcomes associated with membership in different trajectory groups. Participants were 136 boys and 148 girls, their teachers, and their parents (19.4 percent African‐American, 2.4 percent Asian, 51.9 percent Caucasian, 19.5 percent Hispanic, and 5.8 percent other). Teachers rated children's prosocial behavior yearly in grades 4–12. At the end of the 12th grade year, teachers, parents, and participants reported externalizing behaviors and participants reported internalizing symptoms, narcissism, and features of borderline personality disorder. Results suggested that prosocial behavior remained stable from middle childhood through late adolescence. Group‐based mixture modeling revealed three prosocial trajectory groups: low (18.7 percent), medium (52.8 percent), and high (29.6 percent). Membership in the high prosocial trajectory group predicted lower levels of externalizing behavior as compared with the low prosocial trajectory group, and for girls, lower levels of internalizing symptoms. Membership in the medium prosocial trajectory group also predicted being lower on externalizing behaviors. Membership in the high prosocial trajectory group predicted lower levels of borderline personality features for girls only.     

Assessing low‐income African‐American pre‐schoolers' behaviour problems in relationship to community violence,inter‐partner conflict,parenting, informal social support and social skills

This study examined the relations among community violence exposure, inter‐partner conflict and informal social support and the behaviour problems of pre‐schoolers, and explored how mothers' parenting skills and children's social skills may mediate the child outcomes associated with such exposure. Participants were 185 African‐American mothers and female caregivers of Head Start children who completed study measures in a structured interview. Path analyses revealed that greater inter‐partner conflict was associated with more internalizing and externalizing child behaviour problems. Positive parenting was associated with fewer internalizing and externalizing behaviours. Higher levels of child social skills were associated with fewer internalizing and externalizing behaviour problems. Child social skills fully mediated the relationship between community violence and externalizing behaviours as well as between informal support and externalizing behaviours. Social skills partially mediated the relationships between positive parenting and externalizing behaviours. No mediating effect was found on the relationships between inter‐partner conflict and child behaviour problems. Implications of the findings for intervention and future research are discussed.     

Early socialization of hostile attribution bias: The roles of parental attributions,parental discipline,and child attributes

The goal of this study was to examine child and parent predictors of children's hostile attribution bias (HAB) with a particular focus on exploring the associations between parents’ early attribution of child misbehavior and children's HAB in the transition to school age. Participants were 241 children (118 girls) of middle‐income families who were at risk for school‐age conduct problems. Multi‐method, multi‐informant data were collected on maternal attributions of child misbehavior, parental use of corporal punishment, and child attributes (i.e., verbal IQ, effortful control, theory of mind, and emotional understanding) at 3 years, and child HAB in ambiguous situations at 6 years. Results indicated that mothers’ internal explanations for children's misconduct may either reduce or increase children's later HAB depending on the specific content of attributions, such that mothers’ belief that children misbehave because of their internal state (i.e., emotional state or temperament) was associated with lower levels of child HAB, whereas attributing power‐based motives (i.e., manipulative, controlling intentions) in children was associated with higher levels of HAB. The findings are discussed with respect to appreciating the complexity of parents’ explanations for children's behavior, and considering parental cognition as a potential target for early identification and prevention of child HAB and related problems.     

Parental Depressive Symptoms, Children's Representations of Family Relationships, and Child Adjustment

This study extends the investigation of family process models of parental dysphoria and child adjustment, by examining depressive symptoms in both fathers and mothers, and by examining children's representations of family relationships as possible explanatory mechanisms. Participants were 232 children (Time 1 mean age: 5.99; 105 boys, 127 girls) and their cohabiting parents, who participated for three consecutive years. Children's internal representations of multiple family relationships were assessed by means of a story stem completion task. Structural equation modeling indicated that children's inter‐parental and attachment representations are part of the process whereby parental depressive symptoms influence child externalizing symptoms. Maternal depressive symptoms also predicted changes in children's representations of marital and attachment relationships over time. The implications for family process models of relations between parental depressive symptoms in community samples and child development are discussed.