Parent Control and Child Shame: Associations with Children’s Task Persistence and Depressive Symptoms in Middle Childhood

Abstract

SYNOPSIS Objective . Understanding how parents socialize shame may shed light on two related issues: why some children experience intense shame, and whether shame serves as an indirect pathway between parenting behavior and academic and mental health outcomes in middle childhood. Design . This cross-sectional study examined socialization of shame with mothers (N = 98, Mage = 38.73 years) and their school-aged children (53 girls, Mage = 11.55 years). Mothers reported their use of negative conditional regard (NCR) as it pertains to their children’s academic performance, a salient domain of functioning in this developmental stage. Children completed a brief narrative task that was coded to measure their shame-specific emotion regulation; they also participated in an impossible-puzzle stressor to assess task persistence and self-reported their depressive symptoms. Results . Separate models examining the unique effects of NCR in the academic domain and its associations with task persistence during the stressor and with child depressive symptoms showed that children’s more intense shame responses were an indirect pathway between higher NCR and these two distinct child outcomes. Conclusions . Parent use of NCR in the academic domain places school-aged children at higher risk for intense shame and thereby for lower persistence on challenging tasks and more depressive symptoms.