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The role of maternal emotion regulation in controlling parenting during toddlerhood: an observational study

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Abstract

This study investigated the protective role of maternal adaptive emotion regulation in applying controlling parenting practices while assisting their toddler in completing two different problem-solving tasks. More specifically, the role of maternal emotion regulation was examined relative to significant situational (i.e., task difficulty) and child-related (i.e., toddlers’ temperamental negative affectivity) risk factors for controlling parenting. Results showed that (1) mothers’ integrative emotion regulation was negatively related to observed maternal control across tasks, (2) mothers were more controlling during a difficult task compared to an easy task, and (3) toddlers’ temperamental negative affectivity related positively to the use of observed maternal control, albeit only during a difficult task. These results highlight the relevance of maternal emotion regulation processes during parenting practices beyond contextual and temperamental correlates. Directions for future research and clinical implications are discussed.

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Notes

  1. One construct strongly linked to integrative emotion regulation is mindfulness (see Roth et al. 2019 for more information on the link between emotional integration and other conceptual frameworks). Mindfulness is defined as nonjudgmental awareness of one’s present moment experiences (Chambers et al. 2009). Although integrative emotion regulation and mindfulness are overlapping with regard to the component of receptive awareness (Deci et al. 2015), integrative emotion regulation goes beyond awareness and also involves active interest taking in one’s inner emotional world, with the aim of responding more adequately to emotional events. Integrative emotion regulation thus involves a coordination of emotional experiences with other aspects of the self (i.e., needs, values, and aspirations) and with situational circumstances (Schultz and Ryan 2015). The resulting understanding of one’s emotions is used to regulate the expression or withholding of emotions in a more volitional way.

  2. As part of our broader study on parenting, we also assessed mothers’ perceptions of their toddler’s temperamental negative affectivity. Analyzing this variable revealed that (1) mother and father reports of toddlers’ temperament positively correlated with one another, r =.36,  p < .001, and that (2) mother and father reports correlated in the exact same way with observed maternal control. More specifically, both did not significantly correlate with observed maternal control in the easy task, both ps ≥ .372, and both negatively correlated with observed maternal control in the hard task, both rs = − .21, both ps ≤ .021. Running our main analyses using mothers’ report of toddlers’ temperament also revealed the exact same results as those reported with fathers’ report of toddlers’ temperament, with the exception of a marginal rather than significant interaction effect between task difficulty and toddlers’ temperament, p = .073. Nonetheless, unpacking this marginally significant interaction revealed the exact same simple effects as those observed with fathers’ report of toddlers’ temperament, both in terms of direction and of significance.

  3. More detailed information on the results with the six separated observational measures of maternal behaviors is available in the supplementary material online.

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Funding

This study was funded by Research Foundation Flanders (FWO.3EO.2015.0012.01).

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  1. Department of Developmental, Personality and Social Psychology, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, Ghent, Belgium

    Katrijn Brenning, Nele Flamant, Maarten Vansteenkiste, Nathalie Coorevits, Barbara De Clercq & Bart Soenens

  2. Département de Psychologie, Université de Montréal, Pavillon Marie-Victorin, Montreal, Canada

    Jean-Michel Robichaud

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  1. Katrijn Brenning
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Brenning, K., Robichaud, JM., Flamant, N. et al. The role of maternal emotion regulation in controlling parenting during toddlerhood: an observational study. Motiv Emot 44, 897–910 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-020-09857-z

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