Family Emotion Expressiveness Mediates the Relations Between Maternal Emotion Regulation and Child Emotion Regulation

While there is a growing body of literature examining the influence of emotion socialization on children’s emotional and social development, there is less research on what predicts emotion socialization behaviors among parents. The current study explores maternal emotion regulation difficulties as a predictor of emotion socialization practices, specifically, family emotion expressiveness. Further, the current study examines the role of family emotion expressiveness as a possible mediator of the relations between maternal and child emotion regulation in a community sample of 110 mother–child dyads with preschool-aged children. Analyses revealed that positive family expressiveness mediated the relations between maternal emotion dysregulation and child emotion regulation and thus presents important clinical implications for existing emotion socialization interventions.