Parental factors and child emotional regulation: The moderating role of parental warmth

Date

11/20/2019

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Abstract

Parental factors of stress, mental health, use of punitive punishment, and social support have been found to be significantly associated with child emotional regulation (Calkins, Smith, Gill, & Johnson,1998; Chazan-Cohen et al., 2009; Mathis & Bierman, 2015; Maughan, Cicchetti, Toth, Rogasch, 2007; Morris et al., 2007; Mortensen & Barnett, 2018; Wilson, 2017). Parental warmth may buffer this relationship (Wang, Wang, Xing, 2018b). This type of research is specifically needed in at-risk populations in order to help buffer the negative effects experienced within this population, especially in regard to child socioemotional outcomes. Through an attachment lens, this study has utilized a longitudinal design to examine the moderating role of parental warmth in the relationship between parental factors and child emotional regulation. Specifically, this study utilized the data of mothers and children from the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project to consider how parental stress, parental mental health, parental use of punitive behavior, and parental social support are associated with child emotional regulation. Additionally, maternal parental warmth was examined as a moderator among these variables. This study found that parental factors (i.e. parental stress, parental mental health, parental use of punitive punishment and parental social support) were significantly associated with child emotional regulation in an at-risk population, particularly parental mental health and parental use of punitive punishment. Additionally, although parental warmth did not play a moderating role among the considered variables, parental warmth was significantly associated with child emotional regulation.

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Keywords

Child emotional regulation, Parental factors, Parent-child attachment

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