Supportive Teacher Responses to Students’ Emotional Expression Moderate the Association Between Children’s Maladaptive Emotion Regulation and Aggression

Abstract

As the core adult figures in the classroom, teachers guide children’s emotion socialization. We examined if teachers’ supportive and unsupportive responses to children’s emotions moderate the link between children’s maladaptive emotion regulation strategy use and aggression. Three hundred and ninety-eight 4th and 5th grade students (49% girls) and 22 classroom teachers participated in the study. Student report was used to assess maladaptive emotion regulation strategy use and perceptions about teacher’s supportive and unsupportive responses to student expression of intense or negative emotions. Teachers rated students’ aggression. We found that supportive teacher responses to student emotional expression moderated the positive association between student maladaptive emotion regulation strategy use and aggression. When students perceived high levels of supportive teacher responses to their emotional expression (i.e., 1 standard deviation above the mean), there appeared to be no association between maladaptive strategy use and aggression. Our findings indicate that supportive teacher responses to student emotional expression might play a protective role against aggression, especially for children who display ineffective emotion regulation skills. We discuss implications for teacher practices of supporting and responding to students’ emotion regulation, school psychologists’ teacher support through direct and indirect services, and school-wide discipline practices and classroom management. Impact Statement We found that supportive teacher responses to student emotional expression moderated the positive association between student maladaptive emotion regulation strategy use and aggression. Supportive teacher responses to student emotional expression might play a protective role against aggression, especially for children who display ineffective emotion regulation skills. Promoting children’s social and emotional development should involve plans to provide systematic support for teachers to develop knowledge of how to scaffold development of their students’ healthy emotion regulation.