Maternal Attachment Strategies and Emotion Regulation With Adolescent Offspring

Abstract

This study examined the relation between mothers' attachment strategies and emotion regulation in a sample of 42 families with two high-school-aged siblings. Maternal attachment strategies were assessed with the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI), an interview about mothers' own childhood attachment relationships. Mothers with Preoccupied AAI strategies had difficulty regulating emotion during conversations with their older teenagers. These mothers were more anxious and intrusive, and their teenagers had difficulty discussing their goals and plans for the future. Mothers with Secure AAI strategies perceived their daughters as more ego-resilient or capable of modulating emotion in situationally appropriate ways. These findings suggest that mothers' attachment strategies have important implications for how they perceive and respond to their children in an emotionally challenging situation during late adolescence.