Child Anger Regulation, Parental Responses to Children's Anger Displays, and Early Child Antisocial Behavior

Abstract

The display and regulation of child anger in family interaction was coded in a sample of 240 boys and girls at child age 6, and coded using the Specific Affect Coding System. Child antisocial behavior was longitudinally assessed, beginning in kindergarten. Pooled- and family-level analyses were used to assess hazard rates for child anger. Parents’ ability to modulate their own emotions and negative behavior, and children's ability to down-regulate anger were associated with increased latency for child anger. Hazard for child anger increased as parents’ insensitive and negative responses toward the child cumulated during family interaction. Macro-level, non-hazard analyses indicated that chronic levels of child antisocial behavior were associated with the frequency of parental negative behavior, but not with the frequency of child anger. Micro-level hazard analyses indicated that children's ability to regulate anger was related to chronic levels of child covert but not overt antisocial behavior.