Parent–child relationships and early childhood irritability: A longitudinal moderated moderation model

Abstract

The present study proposed a longitudinal moderated moderation model to investigate whether children's cognitive and emotional factors changed the association between parent-child relationships and early childhood irritability. A total of 526 parent-child pairs were included in a two–wave longitudinal study. We assessed children's emotion regulation skills, executive function, and relationships with parents at Wave 1 and irritability at Wave 2 one year later. The results revealed that high quality parent-child relationships were associated with lower levels of irritability. The two−way interaction effects of parent-child relationships × executive function, and emotion regulation skills ×executive function predicting irritability were significant. Moreover, the association between parent-child relationships and child irritability was moderated by emotion regulation skills and executive function simultaneously. Future interventions designed to reduce preschoolers' irritability may be more effective if they focus on improving parent-child relationships and promoting children's emotion regulation skills and executive function.