Mothers’ Emotion Regulation and Negative Affect in Infants: The Role of Self-Efficacy and Knowledge of Parenting Practices

Abstract

Early in development, children rely heavily on caregivers for assistance with the regulation of negative emotion. As such, it is important to understand parent characteristics that influence caregiver ability to attenuate infant negative affect and mediating factors by which this process may unfold. This study examined the relationship between parental emotional regulation strategies (ERs) and infants’ negative affect and tested the mediating effects of parenting self-efficacy and knowledge of this association. Results indicated that higher maternal reappraisal was related to higher maternal self-efficacy whereas higher maternal suppression was related to lower knowledge of parenting practices. Maternal suppression was negatively related to infant frustration; maternal self-efficacy was positively related to infant falling reactivity and negatively related to sadness. There was a significant indirect effect between maternal reappraisal and infant falling reactivity through maternal self-efficacy. The mediation result suggests that mothers with higher use of reappraisal show higher self-efficacy and have infants with higher falling reactivity. Maternal knowledge about parenting practices was related to lower infant fear. Maternal knowledge of parenting practices did not mediate any associations between maternal emotion regulation strategies and infant negative affect. These findings contribute to the understanding early protective parenting mechanisms for supporting the external regulation of negative affect in infants and also in designing and implementing preventive parenting programs focused on the emotional needs of parents and children.

Barriers and enablers to accessing child health resources and services: Findings from qualitative interviews with Arabic and Mongolian immigrant mothers in Australia

“… 6 , 7 Several studies have shown a positive correlation between the educational attainment of parents and their ability to make informed health decisions regarding their children. 7 , 8 A 2022 systematic review exploring parental health literacy on the health outcomes of children found that poor parental health literacy negatively impacted children’s health outcomes due to several factors including delay in health-seeking behaviours. 9 This could indicate that parents have varying levels of access to accurate and reliable information sources.…”