Longitudinal Associations of Parental Emotion Socialization and Children’s Emotion Regulation: The Moderating Role of ADHD Symptomatology

Abstract

Theory and research suggest that parents' reactions to children's emotions play a critical role in teaching children effective emotion regulation (ER) skills, but no studies have directly examined the role that parent emotion socialization plays in the development of ER in children with ADHD. Gaining insight into the causes of impaired ER, particularly in youth with ADHD who are known to have poor ER, has important theoretical and translational significance. The present study is the first to longitudinally examine whether emotion socialization predicts later physiological and adult-reported measures of ER in children with and without ADHD. It also sought to determine if these relations are moderated by ADHD symptoms. Participants were 61 children (31 girls, 30 boys; M = 10.67 years, SD = 1.28) with and without clinically significant ADHD symptoms. At Time 1, parent reports of emotion socialization and parent- and teacher-report of child ADHD symptoms were collected. At Time 2, child ER measures were collected based on parent- and teacher-report and physiological reactivity during an impossible puzzle and a social rejection task. Physiological measures included respiratory sinus arrhythmia and skin conductance level (SCL). Supportive parenting practices were associated with better parent-rated emotion regulation skills for all children and greater SCL reactivity for children with high ADHD symptoms. Non-supportive parenting reactions were associated with greater adult-rated emotional lability for children with high ADHD symptoms. Results highlight the importance of considering multiple aspects of ER, including physiological manifestations. Findings suggest that parents' use of adaptive emotion socialization practices may serve as a protective factor for children's ER development and may be particularly critical for youth with ADHD. Our findings support the use of interventions addressing parent emotion socialization to help foster better ER in children.

Stress and parenting predict changes in adolescent respiratory sinus arrhythmia

“…This was not entirely unexpected, given that the only other study examining resting RSA as an outcome of supportive parenting found no relation between supportive parenting at age 2 and resting RSA at age 4 (Kennedy et al, 2004), though theory might suggest that supportive parenting would indeed have a main effect on resting capacity for emotion regulation as indexed by RSA (e.g., Beauchaine, 2015;Beauchaine & Zalewski, 2016;Crowell et al, 2014;Shader et al, 2018). However, the literature examining the relation between supportive parenting and RSA reactivity is more equivocal and shows both significant and non-significant associations (e.g., Breaux et al, 2018;Calkins et al, 1998;El-Sheikh, 2005;Gottman et al, 1996;Miller et al, 2013;Perry et al, 2012). One reason for this lack of a direct effect may be due to the developmental period assessed in the study.…”

“…We found only one study that specifically examined associations between parental socialization of emotion and child resting RSA: Kennedy, Rubin, Hastings, and Maisel () did not find that supportive parenting at age 2 significantly predicted resting RSA at age 4. There has been more research examining relations between parental socialization of emotion and RSA reactivity across the developmental spectrum, with parental socialization of emotion showing both significant (e.g., Calkins, Smith, Gill, & Johnson, ; El‐Sheikh, ; Gottman, Katz, & Hooven, ; Miller et al, ) and non‐significant (e.g., Breaux, McQuade, Harvey, & Zakarian, ; Calkins et al, ; Hastings, Klimes‐Dougan, Kendziora, Brand, & Zahn‐Waxler, ; McQuade & Breaux, ; Perry, Calkins, Nelson, Leerkes, & Markovitch, ) associations with RSA reactivity. It is important to note that RSA reactivity, though related to resting RSA, is conceptually distinct.…”

Determinants of Maternal Emotion Socialization: Based on Belsky’s Process of Parenting Model

“…ES is identified as emotion area-specific parenting and is embedded within general parenting. Emerging evidence shows that parental ES shapes children's emotion repertoire, such as emotion recognition, expression, and regulation (Breaux et al, 2018;Wang et al, 2019), which in turn further impacts children's psychological adjustment and peer relationships (Katz et al, 2012;Jin et al, 2017). For example, helping children identify the cause of angry feelings and teaching children how to address anger-causing problems may provide children with skills they can use next time when playing with a peer, thus potentially buffering their aggression words or behaviors (Nelson and Boyer, 2018).…”

Reações maternas às emoções negativas dos filhos e autorregulação emocional infantil

“…Vários estudos correlacionais têm fornecido evidências a respeito das relações entre as reações apoiadoras dos pais e a autorregulação emocional infantil (Meyer et al, 2014;Mirabile, 2015;Han et al, 2015). Adicionalmente, um estudo longitudinal investigou a autorregulação emocional de crianças com e sem sintomas de TDAH e as reações de seus pais e confirmou o poder preditivo das reações apoiadoras (Breaux et al, 2017). Em conjunto, esses achados apoiam a noção de que as reações apoiadoras dos pais às emoções dos filhos facilitam a autorregulação das emoções por parte da criança.…”