TY - JOUR
T1 - Maternal emotion regulation and early childhood irritability
T2 - The mediating role of child directed emotion regulation strategies
AU - Cave-Freeman, Dominique
AU - Mancini, Vincent O.
AU - Wakschlag, Lauren S.
AU - Finlay-Jones, Amy
N1 - Funding Information:
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This project was funded by the Raine Medical Research Foundation, Brightspark Award, awarded to Dr Amy Finlay-Jones. The funder had no role in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; or in the decision to submit the article for publication.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022
PY - 2022/10
Y1 - 2022/10
N2 - Parental assistance with children's emotion regulation (ER) is a form of emotion socialization behavior that has recently been operationalized with the development of the Parent Assistance with Child Emotion Regulation (PACER) questionnaire. In line with Eisenberg et al.'s heuristic model of the socialization of emotion, this study sought to test the links between mothers' ER difficulties, their use of ER strategies with their child, and child irritability – a salient dimension of child regulatory difficulties. Cross-sectional data was collected online with mothers (N = 371) of children aged one month to 5 years (M = 2.07 years, SD = 1.25) and data were analysed using hierarchical multiple regression analysis. After controlling for child age and gender, maternal distress, and household income, we found small but significant associations between maternal ER difficulties and child irritability. However, maternal use of ER strategies did not account for further variance in child irritability. These findings suggest that there are meaningful associations between maternal ER and child irritability, although maternal strategies to support child ER appear independent of their own ER capacity. Whilst not associated with child irritability, maternal support for children's ER may be associated with other indicators of mental health risk and resilience.
AB - Parental assistance with children's emotion regulation (ER) is a form of emotion socialization behavior that has recently been operationalized with the development of the Parent Assistance with Child Emotion Regulation (PACER) questionnaire. In line with Eisenberg et al.'s heuristic model of the socialization of emotion, this study sought to test the links between mothers' ER difficulties, their use of ER strategies with their child, and child irritability – a salient dimension of child regulatory difficulties. Cross-sectional data was collected online with mothers (N = 371) of children aged one month to 5 years (M = 2.07 years, SD = 1.25) and data were analysed using hierarchical multiple regression analysis. After controlling for child age and gender, maternal distress, and household income, we found small but significant associations between maternal ER difficulties and child irritability. However, maternal use of ER strategies did not account for further variance in child irritability. These findings suggest that there are meaningful associations between maternal ER and child irritability, although maternal strategies to support child ER appear independent of their own ER capacity. Whilst not associated with child irritability, maternal support for children's ER may be associated with other indicators of mental health risk and resilience.
KW - Early childhood
KW - Emotion regulation
KW - Irritability
KW - Maternal
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85130555084&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85130555084&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.paid.2022.111717
DO - 10.1016/j.paid.2022.111717
M3 - Article
C2 - 37206891
AN - SCOPUS:85130555084
SN - 0191-8869
VL - 196
JO - Personality and Individual Differences
JF - Personality and Individual Differences
M1 - 111717
ER -
