Family‐level profiles of parental reactions to emotions: Longitudinal associations with multi‐informant reports of adolescent internalizing and externalizing symptoms

Abstract

Longitudinal study of associations between family‐level emotion socialization and adolescent adjustment is limited. When American children (53.5% girls) were in second grade (N = 213; Mage = 7.98; data collected 2002–2003), mothers and fathers (79.8% of mothers and 74.2% of fathers were White) reported on their reactions to children's emotions; in seventh, eighth, and ninth grade (Mage = 13.03, 14.17, 15.29, respectively; data collected 2007–2010), adolescents, mothers, and fathers reported on adolescent internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Four family‐level profiles of reactions were identified. Profile differences emerged, suggesting that the emotion dismissing profile was longitudinally associated with elevated adolescent internalizing and externalizing symptoms and that fathering may especially foster child adjustment for families in a divergence profile.