The Role of Parental Emotion Regulation in Parent Emotion Socialization: Implications for Intervention

Abstract

With a growing body of literature demonstrating the link between parent emotion socialization (the way in which parents model, react to, or teach children about emotions) and children’s emotional competence, there is an increasing interest in identifying the determinants of parent emotion socialization. Stress and the way parents regulate their emotional responses to stress are understood to play a significant role in determining parents’ capacity to socialize children’s emotional learning in positive ways. When parents have difficulty managing their own emotional responses (e.g., under conditions of high stress), their efforts to parent effectively and socialize their children’s emotional learning can be compromised. In this chapter, we review the empirical literature that has explored the relationship between stress, parent functioning (specifically parent’s own emotion awareness, regulation, and mental health), parent emotion socialization (especially emotion coaching) and children’s emotional, social, and behavioral functioning. In doing so, we consider how problematic ways of coping with stress are implicated in mental health difficulties and affect parents’ responsiveness to interventions. Then, we outline how we have targeted parent emotion regulation in our emotion socialization parenting program (Tuning in to Kids) that provides parents with skills to cope with stress more effectively. Finally, using data from our previously published intervention trials we reanalyze whether parent emotion awareness, regulation, and mental health are determinants of how well parents respond to this parenting program.