A fundamental question in developmental science is how parental emotion socialization processes are associated with children's subsequent adaptation. Few extant studies have examined this question ...across multiple developmental periods and levels of analysis. Here, we tested whether mothers' supportive and nonsupportive reactions to their 5-year-old children's negative emotions were associated with teacher and adolescent self-reported adjustment at age 15 via children's physiological and behavioral emotion regulation at age 10 (N = 404). Results showed that maternal supportive reactions to their children's negative emotions were associated with children's greater emotion regulation in a laboratory task and also a composite of mother and teacher reports of emotion regulation at age 10. Maternal nonsupportive reactions to their children's negative emotions were uncorrelated with supportive reactions, but were associated with poorer child physiological regulation and also poorer mother- and teacher-reported emotion regulation at age 10. In turn, better physiological regulation at age 10 was associated with more adolescent-reported social competence at age 15. Furthermore, teacher and mother reports of emotion regulation at age 10 were associated with increased adolescent adjustment across all domains. Mediational effects from nonsupportive and supportive reactions to adolescent adjustment tested via bootstrapping were significant. Our findings suggest that mothers' reactions to their children's negative emotions in early childhood may play a role in their children's ability to regulate their arousal both physiologically and behaviorally in middle childhood, which in turn may play a role in their ability to manage their emotions and behaviors and to navigate increasingly complex social contexts in adolescence.
Early antisocial behavior has its origins in childhood behavior problems, particularly those characterized by aggressive and destructive behavior. Deficits in self-regulation across multiple domains ...of functioning, from the physiological to the cognitive, are associated with early behavior problems, and may place children at greater risk for the development of later antisocial behavior. Data are presented from a longitudinal study of early self-regulation and behavior problems, the RIGHT Track Research Project, demonstrating that children at greatest risk for early and persistent problem behavior display patterns of physiological and emotional regulation deficits early in life. Parenting behavior and functioning have also been examined as predictors of trajectories of early problem behavior, and some data support the interaction of parenting and self-regulation as significant predictors of patterns of problematic behavior and ongoing problems with the regulation of affect. Peer relationships also affect and are affected by early self-regulation skills, and both may play a role in academic performance and subsequent school success. These data provide evidence that the social contexts of early family and peer relationships are important moderators of the more proximal mechanism of self-regulation, and both types of processes, social and biobehavioral, are likely implicated in early antisocial tendencies. Implications of these findings on self-regulation and early behavior problems are discussed in terms of future research and treatment approaches.
Emotional eating is associated with an increased risk of binge eating, eating in the absence of hunger and obesity risk. While previous studies with children and adolescents suggest that emotion ...regulation may be a key predictor of this dysregulated eating behavior, little is known about what other factors may be influencing the link between emotional regulation and emotional eating in adolescence. This multi-method longitudinal study (
= 138) utilized linear regression models to examine associations between childhood emotion regulation, adolescent weight status and negative body image, and emotional eating at age 17. Emotion regulation predicted adolescent emotional eating and this link was moderated by weight status (
= 1.19,
< 0.01) and negative body image (
= -0.34,
< 0.01). Higher engagement in emotional eating was predicted by lower emotional regulation scores among normal-weight teens (
= -0.46,
< 0.001) but not among overweight/obese teens (
= 0.32,
> 0.10). Higher scores on emotion regulation were significantly associated with lower emotional eating at high (
= -1.59,
< 0.001) and low (
= -1.00,
< 0.01) levels of negative body image. Engagement in emotional eating was predicted by higher negative body image among overweight/obese teens only (
= 0.70,
< 0.001). Our findings show that while better childhood emotion regulation skills are associated with lower emotional eating, weight status and negative body image influence this link and should be considered as important foci in future interventions that aim to reduce emotional eating in adolescence.
This study investigated the role of emotion regulation in children's early academic success using a sample of 325 kindergarteners. A mediational analysis addressed the potential mechanisms through ...which emotion regulation relates to children's early academic success. Results indicated that emotion regulation was positively associated with teacher reports of children's academic success and productivity in the classroom and standardized early literacy and math achievement scores. Contrary to predictions, child behavior problems and the quality of the student teacher relationship did not mediate these relations. However, emotion regulation and the quality of the student–teacher relationship uniquely predicted academic outcomes even after accounting for IQ. Findings are discussed in terms of how emotion regulation skills facilitate children's development of a positive student–teacher relationship as well as cognitive processing and independent learning behavior, all of which are important for academic motivation and success.
The association between parenting stress and child externalizing behavior, and the mediating role of parenting, has yielded inconsistent findings; however, the literature has typically been ...cross-sectional or unidirectional. In the current study, the authors examined the longitudinal transactions among parenting stress, perceived negative parental reactions, and child externalizing at 4, 5, 7, and 10 years old. Models examining parent effects (parenting stress to child behavior), child effects (externalizing to parental reactions and stress), indirect effects of parental reactions, and the transactional associations among all variables were compared. The transactional model best fit the data, and longitudinal reciprocal effects emerged between parenting stress and externalizing behavior. The mediating role of parental reactions was not supported; however, indirect effects suggest that parenting stress both is affected by and affects parent and child behavior. The complex associations among parent and child variables indicate the importance of interventions to improve the parent–child relationship and reducing parenting stress.
We examined longitudinal associations across an 8-year time span between overcontrolling parenting during toddlerhood, self-regulation during early childhood, and social, emotional, and academic ...adjustment in preadolescence (N = 422). Overcontrolling parenting, emotion regulation (ER), and inhibitory control (IC) were observed in the laboratory; preadolescent adjustment was teacher-reported and child self-reported. Results from path analysis indicated that overcontrolling parenting at age 2 was associated negatively with ER and IC at age 5, which, in turn, were associated with more child-reported emotional and school problems, fewer teacher-reported social skills, and less teacher-reported academic productivity at age 10. These effects held even when controlling for prior levels of adjustment at age 5, suggesting that ER and IC in early childhood may be associated with increases and decreases in social, emotional, and academic functioning from childhood to preadolescence. Finally, indirect effects from overcontrolling parenting at age 2 to preadolescent outcomes at age 10 were significant, both through IC and ER at age 5. These results support the notion that parenting during toddlerhood is associated with child adjustment into adolescence through its relation with early developing self-regulatory skills.
Trajectories of emotion regulation processes were examined in a community sample of 269 children across the ages of 4 to 7 using hierarchical linear modeling. Maternal depressive symptomatology ...(Symptom Checklist-90) and children's physiological reactivity (respiratory sinus arrhythmia RSA) and vagal regulation (ΔRSA) were explored as predictors of individual differences in trajectories of emotion regulation and negativity (mother-reported Emotion Regulation Checklist;
A. M. Shields & D. Cicchetti, 1997
). In addition, the authors explored whether children's physiological regulation would moderate the effect of maternal depressive symptomatology on children's emotion regulation trajectories. Results indicated that over time, emotion regulation increased whereas negativity decreased, though considerable individual variability in the pattern of change was observed. Greater maternal depressive symptomatology was associated with less steep emotion regulation trajectories. There was a significant Maternal Depressive Symptomatology × Baseline RSA × Age interaction predicting emotion regulation trajectories. Overall, it appears that the development of emotion regulation over time is compromised when mothers report greater depressive symptomatology. There is also evidence that children's capacity for physiological regulation can buffer some of the adverse consequences associated with maternal depressive symptomatology.
Parasympathetic nervous system functioning as indexed by respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) is widely used as a measure of physiological regulation. We examined developmental patterns of children's ...resting RSA and RSA reactivity from 2 to 15 years of age, a period of time that is marked by considerable advances in children's regulatory abilities. Physiological data were collected from a community sample of 270 children (116 males) during a resting period and during a frustration laboratory task when the children were 2, 4, 5, 7, 10, and 15 years old. We examined both stability and continuity in resting RSA and RSA reactivity across time. We found stability in resting RSA but not RSA reactivity from toddlerhood to adolescence. Separate multilevel models were used to examine changes in resting RSA and RSA reactivity from Age 2 to Age 15. The rate of change in resting RSA slowed from Age 2 to Age 15 with a plateau around Age 10. A splined growth model indicated that the rate of RSA reactivity increased from Age 2 to Age 7 and a modest slowing and leveling off from Age 7 to Age 15. Understanding the developmental characteristics of RSA across childhood and adolescence is important to understanding the larger constructs of self- and emotion regulation.
We examined associations between specific self-regulatory mechanisms and externalizing behavior patterns from ages 2 to 15 (N = 443). The relation between multiple self-regulatory indicators across ...multiple domains (i.e., physiological, attentional, emotional, and behavioral) at age 2 and at age 5 and group membership in four distinct externalizing trajectories was examined. By examining each of these self-regulatory processes in combination with one another, and therefore accounting for their shared variance, we aimed to better understand which specific self-regulatory skills were associated most strongly with externalizing behavioral patterns. Findings suggest that behavioral inhibitory control and emotion regulation are particularly important in distinguishing between children who show normative declines in externalizing behaviors across early childhood and those who demonstrate high levels through adolescence.
The prevalence of obesity among U.S. youth continues to increase, with many adolescents engaging in unhealthy eating behaviors. Increasingly, research points to the role of self-regulation in obesity ...development, yet existing work has largely focused on young children and/or clinical adult populations. This multi-method longitudinal study (
= 153) utilized a path analysis to delineate links between emotion regulation (age 15), emotional eating and dietary restraint (age 16), and adiposity (% body fat) using a BodPod for body composition assessment (age 19). Emotion regulation was negatively associated with emotional eating (
= -0.30,
< 0.001) and positively associated with dietary restraint (
= 0.15,
< 0.05) at age 16, but was not associated with age 19 adiposity (
= -0.01,
= ns). Emotional eating was positively associated with adiposity (
= 0.24,
< 0.01). Indirect effects suggested that emotional eating, but not dietary restraint, at age 16 serves as a mechanism that helps explain the associations between emotion regulation and adiposity four years later. Results from this study suggest that both emotion regulation and emotional eating represent promising targets for that should be included in future interventions aimed at preventing adolescent obesity.
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