Parental Effects on Children's Emotional Development Over Time and Across Generations

Abstract

Principal tasks of the early childhood years, including attaining self-efficacy, self-control, social integration, and preparedness for education, require the development of adaptive and competent emotional development. Results from longitudinal and intergenerational studies examining the effect of parenting behaviors on children's emotional outcomes provide support for the importance of parenting style as a mechanism in the development of competent or problematic emotional functioning over time and across generations. Despite the critical role of emotional competence on lifelong development, little longitudinal research has assessed its effect on children's cognitive, social, behavioral, and academic competence over time, or how parenting affects the emotional functioning and later developmental outcomes in subsequent generations. The objectives of the present article were to (1) summarize and integrate longitudinal and intergenerational research on the emotional development of at-risk and typically developing children; (2) evaluate research examining the role that parenting behaviors play in the development of children's emotional competence; (3) highlight cross-sectional research investigating parental influences on the emotional development of children with disabilities; and (4) describe how adaptive and maladaptive emotional development affect the overall functioning of children with and without developmental disabilities. The importance of studying emotional development is underscored, as well as implications for social, educational, and health policy.