Mother and father repertoires of emotion socialization practices in middle childhood

Abstract

This study identified profiles of parental responses to children's positive and negative emotion expression using latent profile analysis and examined socio-cultural, family, parent, and child correlates of these profiles. Parents (N = 870) of children aged 8–12 completed self-report measures of their responses to children's positive and negative emotion expression, ethnicity, income, family expressivity, parent and child emotion regulation and psychopathology. Four profiles of parental emotion socialization emerged: the teach and problem-focused parent, supportive parent, balanced parent, and hyper-engaged parent. These profiles significantly differed by income, ethnicity, family expressivity, parent and child emotion dysregulation and psychopathology symtoms. Parents in the supportive and teach and problem-focused profiles reported enhanced child emotion regulation and fewer child psychopathology symptoms compared to the balanced and hyper-engaged parents. Findings highlight the importance of considering constellations of parent responses to children's broad range of emotions, and socio-cultural, family, parent, and child correlates of these patterns.