The role of fathers’ versus mothers’ parenting in emotion-regulation development from mid-late adolescence: Disentangling between-family differences from within-family effects

Abstract

This four-year, multi-informant longitudinal study (N=480, initial age: 15) investigated the interplay between parental support, behavioral- and psychological control, and adolescents’ emotion regulation development. We examined reciprocal effects between parents and children, mothers' versus fathers’ unique roles in emotion regulation development, and sex differences. Multi-informant data allowed us to compare effects of adolescent-perceived and parent-reported parenting. Finally, innovative analyses allowed us to disentangle between-family differences from within-family predictive processes. Parenting and emotion regulation were associated at the between-family and within-family levels, especially according to adolescent reports. Support primarily played a role between mothers and adolescents, and perceived behavioral control between fathers and adolescents. Sex moderation revealed that support played a more prominent role in mother-daughter than mother-son relationships, and that daughters experienced greater behavioral control. Child effects outnumbered parent effects, which might reflect the increasing equality of adolescent-parent relationships. Finally, adolescent-perceived parenting was a stronger correlate of emotion regulation than parent-reports, suggesting that adolescents' perceptions are a relevant source of information for research and practice. Consistent with the self-determination theory perspective on parenting, emotion regulation flourished when adolescents felt like mothers provided support, and fathers loosened behavioral control. These results are in line with the notion that mother-child relationships are supportive attachment relationships, whereas fathers provide "activation" relationships, challenging adolescents to regulate emotions autonomously by providing less explicit structure.

Mothers’ and fathers’ quantitative and qualitative parenting in relation to children’s emotional adjustment: A between- and within-family investigation.

“…In line with this theory, research has found that mothers' respond more warmly and supportively to emotional expression, whereas fathers are more demanding and punitive INVOLVEMENT AND EMOTIONAL ADJUSTMENT 7 (Cassano, Perry-Parrish, & Zeman, 2007;Eisenberg et al, 1999). In adolescence, maternal warmth was a more salient socialization mechanism of emotional adjustment than maternal demandingness, whereas this pattern was reversed for fathers (Van Lissa et al, 2019).…”

“…Another study similarly found that associations between maternal and paternal qualitative parenting and adolescents' emotional adjustment, were mostly explained by INVOLVEMENT AND EMOTIONAL ADJUSTMENT 6 between-family level correlations. The remaining predictive effects consisted primarily of child effects, not parenting effects (Van Lissa, Keizer, Van Lier, Meeus, & Branje, 2019). The authors theorized that this finding was reflective of the relative equality of parent-child relationships in adolescence.…”

Three Extensions of the Random Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Model

“…In the previous section, we used a dummy variable for neuroticism as a predictor in our model, which allowed us to investigate whether there are mean differences between the group high on neuroticism, and the group low on neuroticism. Alternatively, one can use such a categorical variable as a grouping variable in multiple group analysis (e.g., Vangeel et al, 2018;Van Lissa, Keizer, Lier, Van Meeus, and Branje, 2019). This approach implies that not only the means can differ across the groups (as is the case when including dummy variables as predictors of the random intercepts or the observed variables, as described in the previous section), but also the lagged regression coefficients, the (residual) variances, and the (residual) covariances.…”

Family Processes and Children's and Adolescents' Well‐Being

“…Studies that estimated growth curves for dependent and independent variables provided useful information for examining processes across time as well as specifying useful foci for prevention and intervention efforts (e.g., Beeghly et al, ; Juang et al, ; Madigan et al, ). Multilevel analyses of repeated measures (and members of dyads) facilitated the understanding of factors that predict outcomes across families and those that predict processes within families (e.g., Van Lissa, Keizer, Van Lier, & Meeus, ; Whiteman et al, ). Results from intervention studies detailed family processes that could be changed and sustained over time (e.g., Piquero et al, ).…”