Parenting behaviors and resilience: A mediating for emotional regulation across trauma exposure

Despite the high prevalence of trauma across the lifespan, there is limited research on trauma that occurs in childhood and adolescence and the effects that a person experiences later in life as an adult. Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) have been consistently well-defined, but their impacts, in conjunction with other environmental factors and individual abilities, have not been identified. Expressly, resilience, or the occurrence of post-traumatic growth following an adverse event, of adults who experienced trauma in childhood and adolescents has limited research in association with relevant variables. For example, parenting behaviors, such as responsiveness and demandingness, have been identified to have lasting impacts on offspring’s psychological well-being. Parents also model methods of emotion regulation (ER) and its practice. Results illustrated a statistical significance in resilience scores based on the total number of ACEs. Parental responsiveness and parental demand significantly predicted resilience separately. A mediation analysis demonstrated a partial mediation between parental responsiveness and resilience through ER. Similarly, results illustrated a partial mediation between parental demand and resilience through ER. From these results, more information about the relationship between trauma and resilience has been explained that can inform and target specific interventions across the lifespan and identify areas of future research.