No abstract

Young children's physiological and emotional regulation depend on supportive caregiving, especially in the context of stress and adversity. Experiences of child maltreatment become biologically embedded by shaping stress physiology. Maternal emotion socialization may have an important influence on children's limbic-hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (LHPA) functioning. Grounded in theories of caregiver emotion socialization, a person-centered latent profile analysis was utilized to identify profiles of maternal emotion socialization among a high risk, low income, and racially diverse group of 248 mothers and their young children (M age = 4.39 years, SD = 1.10). The majority of the mothers (n = 165) had a history of involvement with the Department of Child Services for substantiated cases of child maltreatment. A latent profile analysis was conducted revealing three emotion socialization profiles: disengaged, engaged, and engaged + supportive. Emotion socialization profile differences in children's diurnal cortisol levels and slope (using area under the curve with respect to ground and increase, respectively) were examined. Children's diurnal cortisol levels were higher, and slopes were flatter, when mothers used more disengaged emotion socialization strategies. Mothers who neglected their children were more likely to fit the disengaged profile than the engaged profile. Implications for the socialization of regulation in children exposed to adversity are discussed.

The manner in which mothers engage in emotional discussion, or reminisce, with their young children about past emotional experiences poses important ramifications for child socioemotional and cognitive development. Maltreating mothers may have difficulty engaging in emotionally supportive reminiscing. The current study examined the role of maternal sensitive guidance during reminiscing as a process variable that may explain associations between child maltreatment and three child self-regulatory dimensions: lability/negativity, emotion regulation, and inhibitory control. Participants included 111 maltreating and 65 demographically matched, non-maltreating mothers and their 3- to 6-year-old children (N = 176). The dyads participated in a joint reminiscing task about four past, emotional shared experiences. Mothers reported on their children’s emotion regulation and lability/negativity while children participated in a behavioral assessment of inhibitory control. Results indicated that maltreating mothers engaged in less sensitive guidance when reminiscing compared to non-maltreating mothers. In the main analysis, maternal sensitive guidance mediated relations between maltreatment and child emotion regulation and inhibitory control, respectively, but not lability/negativity.