The Association Between Attachment Patterns and Parenting Styles With Emotion Regulation Among Palestinian Preschoolers

Qutaiba Agbaria,Fayez Mahamid,Guido Veronese

doi:10.1177/2158244021989624

Abstract

In the current study, we investigated the contribution of attachment and parenting to emotion regulation among preschool children in Palestine. Specifically, we set out to test the hypothesis that both parenting styles and patterns of attachment would be associated with children’s emotion regulation abilities. The sample comprised 150 children from 10 public preschools in Northern Palestine. The preschoolers’ levels of emotion regulation were found to be associated with their parents’ parenting styles. More specifically, permissive and authoritative parenting styles were positively associated with emotion regulation and authoritarian and uninvolved parenting styles were negatively associated with emotion regulation. In addition, a statistically significant positive correlation was found between secure attachment and emotion regulation.

Highlights

At preschool age do children truly begin to develop sophisticated techniques for emotion regulation, as they progressively acquire the ability to follow rules and strategically plan their behaviors (Parrigon et al, 2015)
The highest score was obtained on authoritative parenting style (M = 2.61, 0.29), followed by permissive parenting style (M = 2.27, SD = 0.28); mean range of Parenting Styles Questionnaire is from 1 to 3 with 1 to 1.66 = low, 1.66 to 2.33 = average, and 2.33 to 3.00 = high, with the means for these variables falling above the middle of the range
Significant correlations were found between the different parenting styles and emotion regulation

Summary

Introduction

At preschool age do children truly begin to develop sophisticated techniques for emotion regulation, as they progressively acquire the ability to follow rules and strategically plan their behaviors (Parrigon et al, 2015). Parents should provide a suitable environment for children to develop self-esteem, self-confidence, self-control, and the ability to develop meaningful relationships with others outside the family circle (Feldman & Eidelman, 2009) Parents with this parenting style act to shape and control their children’s behavior according to a clear set of standards that they themselves have established, with the expectation they obey these rules and enforce punishment for failure to comply (Zupancic et al, 2004). They express little affection, use few words to convey their expectations to their children, and expect the children to accept their words at face value (Berg, 2011) Parents with this style attempt to combine a high level of control with strong parental support, providing their children with clear-cut rules that they work to enforce, and recognizing the children’s desires and personal opinions, and trying to direct their children’s actions while offering rational explanations and deploying negotiation strategies (Zupancic et al, 2004). We set out to answer the following research questions: Is there an association between parenting styles and emotion regulation ability among preschool children? Is there an association between attachment patterns and emotion regulation ability among preschool children?

Participants

Findings

Discussion