Dysregulation and Parenting of Emerging Adults

Abstract

ABSTRACT The dysregulation profile (DP; i.e., a profile that identifies individuals with high scores of attention-deficit, anxious/depressed, and aggressive problems) has been shown to be predictive of poor psychological and social outcomes. Previous studies have focused on the predictive profile among children, adolescents, and emerging adults but none have examined the profile among an adult parent population. Determining the influence of the dysregulation profile on parenting behaviors and the parent-child relationship may demonstrate the risk factors involved for both parents and children. Emerging adults were recruited from a large Southern university in the United States. We performed a latent profile analysis with the Adult Behavior Checklist to determine two groups of parents of emerging adult offspring that either had the dysregulation profile or did not. A MANCOVA was performed using the two dysregulation groups to determine differences in parental psychopathology, discipline, parent-child relationship quality, and emerging adult psychopathology. Parents in the dysregulation positive group were more likely to utilize harsh discipline, have poorer relationships with their children, and have children with higher scores of psychopathologies. The results of the current study highlight that those parental figures in the DP-positive group exhibited different characteristics in the parenting of their emerging adult offspring. DP- positive parents were perceived as delivering harsher discipline and poorer relationship quality with their children. Further research is encouraged to examine the bidirectionality of the DP (either of parents on their children or of the emerging adult on their parents, as well as other relationships and outcomes) over time.