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Child Regulation of Negative Emotions and Depressive Symptoms: The Moderating Role of Parental Emotion Socialization

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Abstract

Research indicates that parents’ methods of emotion socialization impact the development of their children’s emotion expressivity, which, in turn, is implicated in the emergence of internalizing symptoms. Relatively little research, however, has examined the emotion socialization behaviors that mothers and fathers use to socialize their children’s emotion regulation with respect to how these behaviors may differentially predict depressive symptoms in their sons and daughters. In the current study, the relations among these three variables were investigated by having mothers and fathers report on their children’s dysregulation and regulation coping of anger and sadness. Sons and daughters reported on their perceived receipt of parents’ responses to their anger and sadness expressivity, as well as their own depressive symptoms. Correlational analyses revealed that unsupportive responses to emotional expressivity were related to greater child emotion dysregulation, poorer emotion coping, and depressive symptoms. Moderation analyses revealed that, for both mothers and fathers, at high levels of unsupportive responses to emotions, children were perceived to have more anger dysregulation, less anger coping, less sadness coping, and more depressive symptoms. Regression analyses indicated that mothers’ unsupportive responses to sadness and fathers’ unsupportive responses to anger are associated with their children’s depressive symptoms. These findings support the notion that mothers and fathers play unique roles in children’s emotion regulation skills and subsequent risk for depression.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Vermont, John Dewey Hall Rm 246, 2 Colchester Avenue, Burlington, VT, 05405-0134, USA

    Wesley Sanders

  2. College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA, USA

    Janice Zeman

  3. George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA

    Jennifer Poon

  4. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA, USA

    Rachel Miller

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  1. Wesley Sanders
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  2. Janice Zeman
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  3. Jennifer Poon
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  4. Rachel Miller
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Correspondence to Wesley Sanders.

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Jennifer Poon graduated from William and Mary and is now at George Mason University.

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Sanders, W., Zeman, J., Poon, J. et al. Child Regulation of Negative Emotions and Depressive Symptoms: The Moderating Role of Parental Emotion Socialization. J Child Fam Stud 24, 402–415 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-013-9850-y

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