Everyday Family Routine Formation: A Source of the Development of Emotion Regulation in Young Children

Abstract

This chapter focuses on young children’s development of emotion regulation in everyday family life. Correlational studies on emotion regulation in laboratory settings have been dominant in the field. Little is known about the development of emotion regulation in naturalistic contexts. The study investigated how daily parent–child interactions created the conditions for the development of emotion regulation from a cultural-historical perspective. A total of 61 h of video data were generated from four families in Australia. Findings showed that forming everyday family routines in parent–child interactions contributed to children’s development of emotion regulation. It is argued that the collective process of routine formation is a source of young children’s development of emotion regulation.