Household Chaos, Parental Responses to Emotion, and Child Emotion Regulation in Middle Childhood

Mother-child similarity during observed interactions: Links with mother and child effortful control

Objective

We examined whether mothers' and child's regulatory capacity, measured by effortful control (EC) and its facets, is associated with variance in mother-child within-dyad similarity in multiple aspects of positive emotions and behaviors during their interaction.

Background

Both parents' and children's self-regulation capacities may help them to modulate their behaviors and emotions to be mutually responsive to and harmonious with their interaction partner.

Methods

Participants were children of 3- to-7-year-olds and their mothers (n = 147). Mothers completed a set of questionnaires regarding themselves, their child, and demographics, and mother-child interactions were observed during three cooperative tasks. We estimated mother-child within-dyad similarity during their brief interaction using the Q-correlation method.

Results

Mothers' general EC was statistically associated with greater mother-child similarity, but children's EC was not. When testing the subscales of EC, greater mother-child similarity was associated with mother's higher attentional control, child's better attention focusing, child's lower levels of low intensity pleasure, and older child age.

Conclusion

Mother's higher attentional control and child's better attention focusing are associated with greater mother and child within-dyad similarity during their interactions.

Implications

This study highlights the importance of considering child and mother self-regulation for intervention efforts to better understand how dyads match and co-modulate their behaviors and emotions during their interactions.

Influence of home chaos on preschool migrant children's resilience: A moderated mediation model

Increasing attention has been drawn to the development of preschool migrant children's resilience recently. Resilience refers to the positive internal strengths and qualities of individuals in adverse situations, and is an essential psychological quality for preschool migrant children to cope with adversity. Home chaos as a risk factor, has an important impact on the development of individual's resilience, but the specific mechanisms under which home chaos works have yet to be explored, especially for preschool migrant children. Based on resilience model theory, 3,135 preschool migrant children and their families were surveyed and a moderated mediating effect mode was constructed to test the effect of home chaos on preschool migrant children's resilience. The results showed that after controlling for gender and age, home chaos significantly and negatively predicted preschool migrant children's resilience. Family resilience played a mediating role in the relationship between home chaos and preschool migrant children's resilience. Meanwhile, social support positively moderated the mediating effects of family resilience. The findings of this study suggested that low home chaos was conducive to promoting family resilience, which in turn fostered children's resilience, and that social support could play its protective role in weakening the negative effects of home chaos and this had certain guiding implications for the development of resilience in preschool migrant children.

The Influence of Parents on Emotion Regulation in Middle Childhood: A Systematic Review

Emotion regulation (ER) has been identified as a transdiagnostic risk factor for psychopathology, making it an ideal target for prevention and treatment. This study explores how parents can nurture the development of child ER. In April 2022, a systematic review was executed focusing on malleable factors in the parental emotion-socialization process during middle childhood. Papers in PubMed, Web of Science and Medline were screened on content-related and methodological criteria. Their methodological quality was assessed. Knowledge was assembled using a summarizing framework encompassing four factors involved in emotion socialization. Fifty papers shed light on modifiable factors at the level of parental meta-emotion philosophy, emotion-related socialization behaviors, the ER skills of parents and the emotional climate of the family. Adaptive socialization appears to be context- and child-specific, thereby taxing parents' ER skills and their ability to put them into practice flexibly. The four changeable factors in the emotion-socialization process are highly intertwined, resulting in four possible entries for parent-directed interventions. Importantly, time should be devoted to the ER capacities of parents and their ability to attune to the situation and their child. Regarding the latter, replication studies are necessary. Recommendations for clinical interventions are provided.