Parental self-regulation, emotional regulation and temperament: Implications for intervention

Abstract

This work presents a theoretical and integrative review about parental self-regulation and emotional regulation processes, and its connections with parental coping and temperament. Parents' adaptation requires the ability to regulate their own behavior in reaction to their perception and interpretation of the child's behavior. These self-regulation processes are often intertwined with intense emotions that need to be regulated. Parenting attitudes and behaviors cannot be fully understood without considering the parents' emotional dysregulation and their emotional regulation strategies. However, only few studies focus the effects of parents' emotional regulation strategies on the parenting behavior. Experiential avoidance and overprotection are discussed as extreme cases of parental emotional regulation strategies that may have particularly detrimental effects in childrearing. The authors propose that, although the main parenting interventions already use a self-regulation approach, specific training in adaptive emotional regulation strategies should be included in these programs.

Emotion Regulation and Personality as Predictors of Mothers' Emotion Socialization Practices

“…Parenting is a task that requires the ability to regulate one's own behavior in response to one's perceptions and interpretations of a child's behavior. Further, the processes of parental self‐regulation and coregulation within the parent–child dyad frequently involve the need to manage intense, and sometimes unpleasant, emotions (Barros et al, 2015). Parents' ability to regulate emotions has been implicated as a key factor contributing to parenting practices and developmental outcomes in children; however, only a handful of studies have assessed the relationships between parental ER and emotion socialization (Buckholdt et al, 2014; Han et al, 2015; Hughes & Gullone, 2010; Jones et al, 2014; Morelen et al, 2016; Sarıtaş et al, 2013).…”

Dating violence in teenage girls: parental emotion regulation and racial differences

“…There are few studies of the parents' emotion regulation and its direct relation to child behaviour (e.g. Barros et al, ). Different types of emotion regulation may also be related to more or less serious dating violence (e.g.…”

Examining the Impact of Maternal Individual Features on Children’s Behavioral Problems in Adoptive Families: The Role of Maternal Temperament and Neurobiological Markers

“…In particular, some parents’ individual features (i.e., temperament traits and genetic markers) and some children’s at risk variables, i.e., age at adoption [ 9 , 10 ] may play a role in the association with one of the main features of children’s mental health, i.e., emotional and behavioral problems. Temperament has been associated with the self-regulatory processes parents use to regulate interaction with their children and select parental strategies they rely on to control their children’s behavior [ 11 ]. Negative Affectivity (reactivity process reflecting a general tendency toward experience negative emotions) and Effortful Control (self-regulation process includes inhibitory control and attentional focusing) are two broad constructs of several temperament dimensions [ 12 ].…”