Parental emotion and emotion regulation: A critical target of study for research and intervention to promote child emotion socialization

Hajal, N. J., & Paley, B. (2020). Parental emotion and emotion regulation: A critical target of study for research and intervention to promote child emotion socialization. Developmental Psychology, 56(3), 403-417. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/dev0000864

Emotion socialization behaviors are parental responses to children’s emotional expressions and are theorized to train (i.e., socialize) children in what their parents perceive as appropriate emotional experiences. Emotion socialization behaviors are important because they are linked with child well-being (e.g., mental health, academic performance). Parents’ emotion regulation (i.e., being aware of and able to appropriately modify one’s emotions) contributes to their emotional socialization of their children. Guided by predominant family and emotion theories (i.e., attachment, family systems, emotion socialization), this article reviewed interventions that target parents’ emotion regulation to improve child well-being. Many of the interventions emphasize the consequential role parents’ emotion regulation plays in affecting children’s emotion responses and well-being. See table 1 on the back of this report for a brief description of several interventions designed to improve parents' emotion regulation.

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