Children's Emotional Reactions Research Articles

A Qualitative Analysis of Children's Emotional Reactions During Hospitalization Following Injury.

Children who sustain injuries are at risk for experiencing traumatic stress reactions. Few studies have obtained detailed, qualitative information regarding children's and parents' own understanding of their experiences during the peritrauma period. Understanding children's injury and early hospital experiences is crucial to inform the development of early interventions during the peritrauma period, which speak to these concerns. The primary purpose of this study was to understand child and parent views of the stressors experienced by children hospitalized for an injury. A secondary aim was to identify children's feelings and thoughts about injury- and hospital-related stressors. Ten children and their parents participated in semistructured interviews. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, and coded. Stressors were classified into 5 domains: procedural concerns, uncertainty, sleep and nutrition challenges, being confined to the hospital, and home preparation. Children and parents were more likely to articulate feelings about stressors than thoughts about stressors. Feelings reported by children and parents were predominantly negative. Children and parents may have an easier time expressing feelings than thoughts, which has implications for communicating with medical teams as well as for psychological treatment. Future research should examine how children's perceptions of their injury- and hospital-related experiences relate to later outcomes such as traumatic stress reactions.

Emotion Socialization in Anxious Youth: Parenting Buffers Emotional Reactivity to Peer Negative Events.

Anxious youth exhibit heightened emotional reactivity, particularly to social-evaluative threat, such as peer evaluation and feedback, compared to non-anxious youth. Moreover, normative developmental changes during the transition into adolescence may exacerbate emotional reactivity to peer negative events, particularly for anxious youth. Therefore, it is important to investigate factors that may buffer emotional reactivity within peer contexts among anxious youth. The current study examined the role of parenting behaviors in child emotional reactivity to peer and non-peer negative events among 86 anxious youth in middle childhood to adolescence (Mean age=11.29, 54% girls). Parenting behavior and affect was observed during a social-evaluative laboratory speech task for youth, and ecological momentary assessment (EMA) methods were used to examine youth emotional reactivity to typical daily negative events within peer and non-peer contexts. Results showed that parent positive behaviors, and low levels of parent anxious affect, during the stressful laboratory task for youth buffered youth negative emotional reactivity to real-world negative peer events, but not non-peer events. Findings inform our understanding of parenting influences on anxious youth's emotional reactivity to developmentally salient negative events during the transition into adolescence.

Children and Terrorism and commentaries

Children and Terrorism and commentaries

Parental autonomy granting and child perceived control: effects on the everyday emotional experience of anxious youth.

Childhood anxiety is associated with low levels of parental autonomy granting and child perceived control, elevated child emotional reactivity and deficits in child emotion regulation. In early childhood, low levels of parental autonomy granting are thought to decrease child perceived control, which in turn leads to increases in child negative emotion. Later in development, perceived control may become a more stable, trait-like characteristic that amplifies the relationship between parental autonomy granting and child negative emotion. The purpose of this study was to test mediation and moderation models linking parental autonomy granting and child perceived control with child emotional reactivity and emotion regulation in anxious youth. Clinically anxious youth (N=106) and their primary caregivers were assessed prior to beginning treatment. Children were administered a structured diagnostic interview and participated in a parent-child interaction task that was behaviorally coded for parental autonomy granting. Children completed an ecological momentary assessment protocol during which they reported on perceived control, emotional reactivity (anxiety and physiological arousal) and emotion regulation strategy use in response to daily negative life events. The relationship between parental autonomy granting and both child emotional reactivity and emotion regulation strategy use was moderated by child perceived control: the highest levels of self-reported physiological responding and the lowest levels of acceptance in response to negative events occurred in children low in perceived control with parents high in autonomy granting. Evidence for a mediational model was not found. In addition, child perceived control over negative life events was related to less anxious reactivity and greater use of both problem solving and cognitive restructuring as emotion regulation strategies. Both parental autonomy granting and child perceived control play important roles in the everyday emotional experience of clinically anxious children.

The developmental costs and benefits of children's involvement in interparental conflict.

Building on empirical documentation of children's involvement in interparental conflicts as a weak predictor of psychopathology, we tested the hypothesis that involvement in conflict more consistently serves as a moderator of associations between children's emotional reactivity to interparental conflict and their psychological problems. In Study 1, 263 early adolescents (M age = 12.62 years), mothers, and fathers completed surveys of family and child functioning at 2 measurement occasions spaced 2 years apart. In Study 2, 243 preschool children (M age = 4.60 years) participated in a multimethod (i.e., observations, structured interview, surveys) measurement battery to assess family functioning, children's reactivity to interparental conflict, and their psychological adjustment. Across both studies, latent difference score analyses revealed that involvement moderated associations between emotional reactivity and children's increases in psychological (i.e., internalizing and externalizing) problems. Children's emotional reactivity to interparental conflict was a significantly stronger predictor of their psychological maladjustment when they were highly involved in the conflicts. In addition, the developmental benefits and costs of involvement varied as a function of emotional reactivity. Involvement in interparental conflict predicted increases in psychological problems for children experiencing high emotional reactivity and decreases in psychological problems when they exhibited low emotional reactivity. We interpret the results in the context of the new formulation of emotional security theory (e.g., Davies & Martin, 2013) and family systems models of children's parentification (e.g., Byng-Hall, 2002).

Examining Validity and Reliability of the Emotional Reactions Checklist with Hospitalized Children

Fear, anxiety, and emotional upset are common experiences for hospitalized children. To identify and treat children's emotional reactions, health care professionals must be able to differentiate emotional reactions from pain and other symptoms. Clinical assessment of emotions requires the use of valid and reliable instruments in acute care settings. This study examined internal consistency, construct, and concurrent validity of the Emotional Reactions Checklist (ERC). A descriptive correlational design guided the psychometric approach. Children answered a sociodemographic questionnaire and responded to self-generated scenarios of pleasant and unpleasant events using two self-report scales of emotions. The convenience sample comprised 59 children admitted to an inpatient unit in a large children's hospital or to a community hospital emergency department. Construct validity was supported by significantly different ERC mean responses to recalled pleasant prehospitalization experiences and unpleasant hospitalization experiences (p < .001) for both ERC item responses and total scale scores. Children's explanations for seemingly inconsistent item responses further supported their ability to use the ERC to convey their emotions. Concurrent validity was supported by moderate (r = 0.32) to strong (r = 0.70) correlations between the Facial Affective Scale and ERC items and scale scores. Internal consistency was better supported for the recalled unpleasant experience (α = 0.77) than for the pleasant experience (α = 0.60). Results supported construct and concurrent validity and beginning internal consistency reliability for the ERC in an acute care setting. Further research is required to establish feasibility of repeated use with ill children.

Mid- and Late-Life Divorce and Parents' Perceptions of Emerging Adult Children's Emotional Reactions

Mid- and Late-Life Divorce and Parents' Perceptions of Emerging Adult Children's Emotional Reactions

Maternal-child adrenocortical attunement in early childhood: continuity and change.

This study evaluated continuity and change in maternal-child hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis attunement in early childhood. Participants were drawn from a prospective study of 1,292 mother-child dyads, which were racially diverse, predominantly low-income, and non-urban. Child focused stress tasks designed to elicit anger, fear, and frustration were administered during early infancy, later infancy, and toddlerhood. Mothers' and children's saliva samples (later assayed for cortisol) were collected before and after the tasks. The strength of mother-child adrenocortical attunement was conserved across infancy and toddlerhood. The magnitude of maternal-child adrenocortical attunement decreased in response to the child-focused stress tasks. Maternal sensitivity and the child's task-related emotional reactivity moderated adrenocortical attunement across the task, with greater maternal sensitivity during a free-play, and lower levels of child emotional reactivity during the stress tasks, stabilizing attunement from pre- to post-task levels. The findings advance our understanding of individual differences in the social regulation of adrenocortical activity in early childhood.

Emotion Regulation is Related to Children's Emotional and External Eating

The objective of this study was to examine the associations between 2 types of emotion regulation (reactivity and inhibition) and 2 types of non-hunger-based eating (emotional eating and external eating). Although emotion regulation and eating regulation problems have both been linked to obesity in previous studies, there is little research examining the link between the two, particularly among children. A total of 782 rural second graders (49% girls, 20% American Indian) were followed longitudinally through third grade. During both data collection points, children participated in face-to-face interviews at school using the Children's Emotion Management Scales and the revised Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire. Correlational analyses revealed that children's emotion regulation was significantly related to both external and emotional eating within and across grades, with reactivity appearing to be more consistently related to eating regulation than was inhibition. Regression analyses showed that second to third grade increases in external and emotional eating were predicted by increases in reactivity to anger and reactivity to worry. Given the established link in previous research between poor behavioral regulation and obesity in children, findings from this study linking child emotional reactivity and emotional and external eating (both forms of behavior dysregulation) are important in informing prevention and treatment programs. Based on these findings, targeting child emotion regulation in addition to behavior regulation skills as part of prevention and intervention programs may improve program effectiveness.

Emotional Reactivity and Regulation in Head Start Children: Links to Ecologically Valid Behaviors and Internalizing Problems

Children's emotional reactivity may interact with their regulatory behaviors to contribute to internalizing problems and social functioning even early in development. Ninety-one preschool children participated in a longitudinal project examining children's reactivity and regulatory behaviors as predictors of internalizing problems and positive and negative social behavior in the classroom. Children who paired negative emotion expression with disengagement during a laboratory task showed higher levels of internalizing problems and more negative social behavior in the classroom six months later. Positive emotion expression paired with engagement during a laboratory task predicted more positive social behavior in the classroom six months later. Physiological reactivity and regulation also predicted children's social behavior in the classroom. Findings suggest that preschool children with maladaptive reactivity and regulatory patterns may be at greater risk for internalizing problems even in early childhood.

Family Communication Across the Military Deployment Experience: Child and Spouse Report of Communication Frequency and Quality and Associated Emotions, Behaviors, and Reactions

Frequency and quality of family deployment communication was assessed and examined in conjunction with emotions and behaviors reported by military children and spouses (N = 26) before, during, and after deployment. Child deployment communication with siblings was associated with positive child outcomes. Conversely, before and during deployment child communication with a deployed parent was related to more child emotional reactions and behavioral problems. For spouses, more and better communication with children and the deployed partner was related to the spouse's having less negative temper or stress reactions. Use of newer communication technology during deployment was related to negative child outcomes.

Parenting Stress and Externalizing Behavior Symptoms in Children: The Impact of Emotional Reactivity

This study investigated whether the parenting stress-child externalizing behavior link is moderated by children's emotional reactivity, as indexed by skin conductance responses (SCRs). Participants were 61 children aged 9-12 years and their mothers. Mothers completed measures of parenting stress and their children's externalizing symptoms; children also reported on their externalizing behavior. Children's SCRs were assessed during the viewing of standardized pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral pictures. Cluster analysis on SCRs identified two groups, labeled Lower SCRs and Higher SCRs. Regression analyses indicated that among children with lower SCRs, those exposed to increased parenting stress reported more externalizing symptoms, whereas those who experienced low parenting stress reported similar rates of externalizing problems as children with higher SCRs. No effect of parenting stress emerged for children with higher SCRs. Findings suggest that higher parenting stress renders children with lower, as opposed to higher, SCRs to emotional stimuli more vulnerable to externalizing problems.

African American Children's Affective Attributions and Consequences Regarding Sociomoral Events

Research Findings: This study examined 56 young (prekindergarten through 2nd grade) urban-dwelling African American children's understanding of the affective attributions and consequences of 3 types of sociomoral rule systems: prosocial, active, and inhibitive morality. It also tested the relationship of affective attributions and consequences to children's behavior. As expected, children's affective responses differed by sociomoral rule system and character role type, supporting the notion of a “happy victimizer” and a subtle attributional shift. Children provided affective attributions that attempted to resolve the dilemmas presented in the different sociomoral vignettes regardless of the affect associated with the vignette. The relationship of children's affective attributions and consequences to their behavior in school was partially supported. Children's affective attributions were significantly associated with their prosocial behavior. However, contrary to predictions, no other significant associations emerged between children's affective attributions and negative behavior or between children's affective consequences and behavior. Practice or Policy: Those working with young African American children should consider the reasoning behind children's emotional and behavioral reactions and not just focus on the correct or appropriate response to understand and promote children's positive development. There are implications for supporting African American children's competence development at school through a behavior promotion approach.

Analog of parental empathy: Association with physical child abuse risk and punishment intentions

ObjectivesCurrent research has been inconsistent in corroborating that parents’ compromised empathy is associated with elevated physical child abuse risk, perhaps in part because of an emphasis on dispositional empathy rather than empathy directed at their own children. Research has also relied on self-reports of empathy that are susceptible to participant misrepresentation. The present study utilized an analog task of parental empathy to investigate the association of parental empathy toward one's own child with physical child abuse potential and with their tendency to punish perceived child misbehavior. MethodsA sample of 135 mothers and their 4–9 year old children were recruited, with mothers estimating their children's emotional reactions using a behavioral simulation of parental empathy. Mothers also provided self-reports on two measures of child abuse potential, a measure of negative attributions and expected punishment of children using vignettes, as well as a traditional measure of dispositional empathic concern and perspective-taking. ResultsFindings suggest that parental demonstration of poorer empathic ability on the analog task was significantly related to increased physical abuse potential, likelihood to punish, and negative child attributions. However, self-reported dispositional empathy exhibited the pattern of inconsistent associations previously observed in the literature. ConclusionsParental empathy appears to be a relevant target for prevention and intervention programs. Future research should also consider similar analog approaches to investigate such constructs to better uncover the factors that elevate abuse risk.

Validation of a questionnaire measuring preschool children's reactions to and coping with noise in a repeated measurement design

ObjectivesThe aim of the study was to explore and describe the reliability and validity of an instrument to measure preschool children's reactions to and coping with indoor noise at preschools...

Pathways and processes of risk in associations among maternal antisocial personality symptoms, interparental aggression, and preschooler's psychopathology

Two studies examined the nature and processes underlying the joint role of interparental aggression and maternal antisocial personality as predictors of children's disruptive behavior problems. Participants for both studies included a high-risk sample of 201 mothers and their 2-year-old children in a longitudinal, multimethod design. Addressing the form of the interplay between interparental aggression and maternal antisocial personality as risk factors for concurrent and prospective levels of child disruptive problems, the Study 1 findings indicated that maternal antisocial personality was a predictor of the initial levels of preschooler's disruptive problems independent of the effects of interparental violence, comorbid forms of maternal psychopathology, and socioeconomic factors. In attesting to the salience of interparental aggression in the lives of young children, latent difference score analyses further revealed that interparental aggression mediated the link between maternal antisocial personality and subsequent changes in child disruptive problems over a 1-year period. To identify the family mechanisms that account for the two forms of intergenerational transmission of disruptive problems identified in Study 1, Study 2 explored the role of children's difficult temperament, emotional reactivity to interparental conflict, adrenocortical reactivity in a challenging parent-child task, and experiences with maternal parenting as mediating processes. Analyses identified child emotional reactivity to conflict and maternal unresponsiveness as mediators in pathways between interparental aggression and preschooler's disruptive problems. The findings further supported the role of blunted adrenocortical reactivity as an allostatic mediator of the associations between parental unresponsiveness and child disruptive problems.

Toward Greater Specificity in Identifying Associations Among Interparental Aggression, Child Emotional Reactivity to Conflict, and Child Problems

This study examined specific forms of emotional reactivity to conflict and temperamental emotionality as explanatory mechanisms in pathways among interparental aggression and child psychological problems. Participants of the multimethod, longitudinal study included 201 two-year-old children and their mothers who had experienced elevated violence in the home. Consistent with emotional security theory, autoregressive structural equation model analyses indicated that children's fearful reactivity to conflict was the only consistent mediator in the associations among interparental aggression and their internalizing and externalizing symptoms 1year later. Pathways remained significant across maternal and observer ratings of children's symptoms and with the inclusion of other predictors and mediators, including children's sad and angry forms of reactivity to conflict, temperamental emotionality, gender, and socioeconomic status.

Dynamic of motional and mimic reactions of healthy children in the prenatal period of life

Ultrasound estimation is spent of emotional reactions of 80 prenatal children to various gestation terms from healthy mothers (21-24; 28-30 and 38-39 weeks). The received reactions are compared with emotional reactions of these children in the neonatal period. Initial emotional reactions of fetus were studied also were estimated their reactions after reception positive emotions by mother, palpations of uterus, listening of pleasant melodious music. There are allocated 4 types of emotional reactions of antenatal children: smiling, gloomy, mobile, labile. The conclusion about possibilities of an ultrasonic estimation of emotional reactions character of healthy pre-natal children is made. Features of emotional reactions of children in various gestation terms are noted. The communication of emotional reactions of pre-natal children with an emotional condition of mother is shown. It is established that features of emotional reactions of children in the prenatal period correspond to type of emotional reactions in the neonatal period and infancy.

Emotional Themes within International Adoption Children’s Books

International adoption is a significant process for parents1 and children (Suter, 2008). In addition to the obvious change (one or more children are added to a family), adjustments might be made in physical and psychological space (Janning, Collins & Kamm, 2011) as parents adapt to the roles of motherhood or fatherhood (Curtis, Blume & Blume, 1997-1998) and children adapt to multiple changes in most aspects of their lives (e.g., Pinderhughes, 1996). Children might be too young (e.g., infant, toddler) at the time of adoption to fully comprehend the event, yet they are likely to have some awareness. Adoptees can recognize a change in caregivers or environments, even if they do not understand the reason for the change (e.g., Murphy, 2009). Changes can be more dramatic in international adoptions. For example, Chinese adoptees and U.S. parents might face linguistic barriers to their communications. In addition, it should be noted that racial/ethnic/cultural differences (in Chinese-US transnational adoptions) might add to a sense of unfamiliarity among children and adults (e.g., Royle, 2004).Under these circumstances, it can be helpful to consider the emotional reactions of children and parents to the adoption process. Information about these processes can be provided in a variety of venues, including children's books. The purpose of this study is to examine emotional themes in children's picture books about international adoption. Song (2004) noted that books are the resource most commonly used by adoptive parents. These books can describe the logistics of the process, so that children receive an explanation of how adoptions occurred. Perhaps more importantly, the books identify the common changes in family relationships and interactions (e.g., Grice, 2005). As adoption is an elongated process with many unknown elements (e.g., how long it will take, who the adopted child will be), this process can evoke many emotional reactions (e.g., Leon, 2002; Suter, 2008). Parents might also not know or be able to gather information about the child's birth family (Ponte, Wang & Fan, 2010). Thus, the families might face doubts, questions or moments of trepidation that do not occur commonly in other family formation patterns (Miall, 1987; Raible, 2008). In addition, children's questions and identity issues can occur years after the adoption has been completed (Ponte, et al., 2010). Thus, the books can serve a retrospective function in helping children understand the ways adoptees and parents respond to various aspects of the adoption process.In addition, the books are consistent with narrative psychology principles, in which individuals and families create meaning through the stories that they share (in oral or written form). Books for very young children can address serious themes and provide models for psychological growth in response to new information (e.g., Dyer, Shatz, & Wellman, 2000). Narratives about family formation are particularly important to adoptees (e.g., Kranstuber & Kellas, 2011), and some remember the adoption books that were read to them in early childhood. Indeed, some adoptees have described the ways in which the books continue to influence (in adulthood) their images of themselves and their families (Jue-Steuck, 2011).If the books address a range of emotions, then books might be a valuable resource to validate the children's and parents' experiences. Indeed, such books have been recommended by adoption agencies (e.g., Families with Children from China, 2011; Little Miracles Adoption Services, 2012), public periodicals (e.g., Parents Magazine, 2012) and clinicians/service providers (e.g., Kavanaugh & Fiorini, 2009). Based on the premise that children's self-concept is affected by the words/images that they see in fictional texts, researchers have conducted content analysis on issues such as racial and gender representation within the books (e.g., Roethler, 1998; Taylor, 2003). …

Emotional reactions of children and adolescents to the advanced oncologic disease of the parents: Preliminary results.

e19542 Background: To describe perceptions of children and adolescents on advanced or terminal oncological disease of their parents, and some factors affecting these perceptions. Methods: Sample of 30 children and adolescents, aged between 5 to 18 years old, whose parents were in treatment or follow-up for advanced oncological disease. We used a semi-structured interview, reflecting the perceptions of ill parents, healthy parents and children. Also, parents were asked for the information they thought their children had about the disease. All participants older than 12 years old, gave Informed Consent to participate in the study. Results: Children and adolescents, described the disease of their parents mixing objetivable data (88.9%) and subjective perceptions (66.7%) with the expression of wishes (44.4%). Up to 76.7 % of ill parents and 82.6% of healthy parents, tended to minimize the capacity of understanding of the disease by their children. The perception that the patient and the healthy parent had of the information of the children correlates positively and significantly (r=0.59; p&lt;0.01) and (r=0.53, p&lt;0.01) respectively with the minimization or maximization of the capabilities of coping that the parents had of their children. There was a significant correlation (r=0.50, p&lt;0.05), between the perceptions from the patient and his partner regarding the information and knowledge that their children have from the disease. Mothers, were the ones usually to decide the type, quality and quantity of information to provide to their children. Conclusions: Most parents and patients tend to underestimate the capacity of understanding of the children and teenagers, being mothers the ones to decide, in most cases, the amount and quality/quantity of the information given to their children about the illness. It would be necessary to attend from the beginning of the disease, the needs of parents with minor children, as well as the needs of their children, in order to help the adaptation to the serious illness from one of their parents, and detect and treat if necessary, cases of psychological vulnerability that can develop psychopathology symptoms.