We observed the positive emotion socialization practice of parental emotion coaching (EC) and the negative socialization practice of emotion dismissing (ED) during a family interaction task and examined their effects on children's emotion regulation and behavior problems in middle childhood. Participants were 87 sociodemographically diverse families (children aged 8-11 years; 46 girls). Outcome measures included mother, father and teacher reports of emotion regulation and behavior problems. ED was a risk factor, contributing to poorer emotion regulation and more behavioral problems. EC did not offer direct benefits for children's emotional and behavioral outcomes, but interacted with ED such that it protected children from the detrimental effects of ED. This protective effect was found for parents' coaching of negative but not positive emotions. Findings suggested that in family emotion conversation, EC and ED interact in complex ways as risk and protective dimensions of family process.Parental emotion socialization plays a vital role in the quality of children's early

Parent–child dyadic rigidity and negative affect contribute to children’s higher levels of externalizing problems. The present longitudinal study examined whether the opposite constructs of dyadic flexibility and positive affect predicted lower levels of externalizing behavior problems across the early childhood period. Mother–child (N = 163) and father–child (n = 94) dyads engaged in a challenging block design task at home when children were 3 years old. Dynamic systems methods were used to derive dyadic positive affect and three indicators of dyadic flexibility (range, dispersion, and transitions) from observational coding. We hypothesized that the interaction between dyadic flexibility and positive affect would predict lower levels of externalizing problems at age 5.5 years as rated by mothers and teachers, controlling for stability in externalizing problems, task time, child gender, and the child’s effortful control. The hypothesis was supported in predicting teacher ratings of child externalizing from both mother–child and father–child interactions. There were also differential main effects for mothers and fathers: mother–child flexibility was detrimental and father–child flexibility was beneficial for child outcomes. Results support the inclusion of adaptive and dynamic parent–child coregulation processes in the study of children’s early disruptive behavior.

This study was a prospective 2-year longitudinal investigation of associations between negative maternal parenting and disruptive child behavior across the preschool to school transition. Our main goals were to 1) determine the direction of association between early maternal negativity and child disruptive behaviors across this important developmental transition and 2) examine whether there would be different patterns of associations for boys and girls. Participants were 235 children (111 girls; T1; M= 37.7 months, T2; M=63.4 months) and their mothers and teachers. Observational and multi-informant ratings of child disruptive behavior showed differential patterns of stability and associations with measures of parenting risk. Results indicated bidirectional and interactive contributions of externalizing behavior and negative parenting across time. Results also indicated that risk mechanisms operate similarly for both sexes. Findings support transactional models of disruptive child behavior that highlight the joint contributions of parents and children.

The authors examined the longitudinal effects of the Family Check-Up (FCU) on parents' positive behavior support and children's school readiness competencies in early childhood. It was hypothesized that the FCU would promote language skills and inhibitory control in children at risk for behavior problems as an indirect outcome associated with targeted improvements in parents' positive behavior support. High-risk families in the Women, Infants, and Children Nutrition Program participated in a multisite preventive intervention study (N = 731) with 3 yearly assessments beginning at child age 2 years. Positive behavior support was measured using 4 indicators derived from at-home observations of parent-child interaction during semistructured tasks. Longitudinal structural equation models revealed that parents in families randomly assigned to the FCU showed improvements in positive behavior support from child age 2 to 3, which in turn promoted children's inhibitory control and language development from age 3 to 4, accounting for child gender, ethnicity, and parental education. Findings suggest that a brief, ecological preventive intervention supporting positive parenting practices can indirectly foster key facets of school readiness in children at risk. Keywords NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author ManuscriptFamily intervention programs for children at risk for early conduct problems are typically designed to decrease problematic parenting practices such as coercion (Dishion, Patterson, & Kavanagh, 1992;Martinez & Forgatch, 2001;Patterson, Reid, Jones, & Conger, 1975) and to increase positive parenting practices such as parental involvement (Forgatch & Toobert, 1979;Webster-Stratton & Taylor, 2001). This focus on parenting skills is thought to lay the groundwork not only for the reduction of children's conduct problems but also for the promotion of children's normative social, emotional, and cognitive competencies during a crucial developmental period (Hess & Holloway, 1984;Shaw, Bell, & Gilliom, 2000). Parental involvement and support, for example, have been linked to children's decreased conduct problems (Gardner, Sonuga-Barke, & Sayal, 1999;Gardner, Ward, Burton, & Wilson, 2003) and improved cognitive and academic achievement (Estrada, Arsenio, Hess, & Holloway, 1987;Supplee, Shaw, Hailstones, & Hartman, 2004). Correspondingly, parenting intervention programs that aim to improve these parenting practices have been shown to be effective for reducing children's behavior problems in early childhood (Barlow & Stewart-Brown, 2000;Brestan & Eyberg, 1998;Webster-Stratton & Taylor, 2001;Yoshikawa, 1995). However, we know less about how the promotion of positive parenting in early family intervention with children at risk for conduct problems influences children's normative competencies, such as school readiness (Brooks-Gunn & Markman, 2005).School readiness is a crucial concern for young children from high-risk families because difficulties with learning at the transition into formal scho...