Emotion Socialization by Mothers and Fathers: Coherence among Behaviors and Associations with Parent Attitudes and Children's Social Competence

Abstract

This study examined interrelations among different types of parental emotion socialization behaviors in 88 mothers and 76 fathers (co-residing with participating mothers) of 8-year-old children. Parents completed questionnaires assessing emotion socialization behaviors, emotion-related attitudes, and their children’s social functioning. An observed parent-child emotion discourse task and a child social-problem solving interview were also performed. Parent gender differences and concordance within couples in emotion socialization behaviors were identified for some but not all behaviors. Fathers’ reactions to child emotion, family expressiveness, and fathers’ emotion coaching during discussion cohered, and a model was supported in which the commonality among these behaviors was predicted by fathers’ emotion-coaching attitudes, and was associated with children’s social competence. A cohesive structure for the emotion socialization construct was less clear for mothers, although attitudes predicted all three types of emotion socialization behavior (reactions, expressiveness, and coaching). Implications for developmental theory and for parent-focused interventions are discussed.

Variability and Predictors of Mothers and Fathers’ Socialization Behaviors and Bidirectional Links with Their Preschoolers Socio-Emotional Competences

“…While parental non-supportive reactions may impede the child's socio-emotional development. Several researchers highlighted also the importance of conversations about emotions in the family to support children's ToM (e.g., [8] [16] [23]), ER development (e.g., [24]) and social adjustment (e.g., [25] [26]). …”

Analysis of Emotional Socialization Behaviors of Mother-Fathers and Social Skills of Preschool Children

“…Konu ile ilgili yapılan araştırmalar (Baker, Fenning ve Crnic, 2011;Güven ve Erden, 2013;Horner ve Wallace, 2013;Yağmurlu ve Altan, 2010) incelendiğinde, duygu sosyalleştirmenin; 3 olumlu (duyguya odaklı, duygu ifadesini kolaylaştıran, problem odaklı), 3 olumsuz tepki (küçümseyici, cezalandırıcı ve ebeveynde sıkıntı) olmak üzere 6 kategoride ele alındığı görülmektedir. Olumlu tepkiler, 1-Duyguya odaklı tepkiler; çocuğun duygusal olarak uyarıldığı durumlarda annenin, çocuğunu daha iyi hissettirme girişimlerini ve desteğini, 2-Duygu ifadesini kolaylaştırıcı tepkiler; annenin çocuğa duygusunu ifade etmesi konusundaki yardımlarını ve cesaretlendirmesini, 3-Problem odaklı tepkiler; annenin çocuğu duygusal olarak zorlayan sorunu çözmesine yardımcı olacak girişimlerini kapsamaktadır.…”

Do Parents Talk about Emotions with Their Children? The Questionnaire of Parent-Child Conversations about Emotions (QPCCE)

“…Indeed, given that parental emotion-related conversations are typically assessed by means of an observational design, it had an interest for researchers and clinicians to develop a more easy use tool that may be used alone or complementarily with an observational task. The same discrepancy for fathers was obtained by Baker, Fenning and Crnic (2011) between a parent self-report of emotional coaching behaviors and an observation design eliciting these behaviors. This discrepancy may have two causes:…”

“…Another possibility, as suggested by Baker et al (2011), is that fathers are more involved in the process of socializa-tion of emotion when children enter in middle childhood.…”