Preschoolers' emotion regulation: The role of mothers' caregiving strategies and emotional expressivity

Sixty-three mother-child dyads participated in a study that examined mothers' caregiving strategies and emotion expressivity in relation to their preschool-age children's emotion regulation and emotion expressivity. Archival observation data of mother-child interactions were re-coded to measure the behaviors of interest. In the original study, dyads were observed in a laboratory waiting task designed to elicit both positive and negative emotions in preschool-age children. All instances of mothers' verbal and behavioral caregiving strategies, emotion expressivity, and of children's emotion regulation were identified from these observations and then coded for 20 maternal caregiving strategies (10 supportive and 10 nonsupportive), and 10 different maternal expressions of positive and negative emotions. Children's behaviors were coded separately and included 20 behaviors indicative of high or low maturity level emotion regulation strategies as well as 10 discrete expressions of positive or negative affect. Mothers' frequent use of supportive caregiving strategies predicted children's frequent use high maturity level emotion regulation strategies. Mothers' who frequently used nonsupportive caregiving strategies had children who were less likely to use high maturity level emotion regulations strategies. Results also indicated that mothers who expressed negative emotions more frequently had children who used low maturity level emotion regulation strategies and expressed negative emotion more often. Finally, findings from two separate path analyses indicated mothers' caregiving strategies and emotion expressivity influenced their children's emotion regulation as well as their emotion expressivity through different pathways. These findings suggest that caregiving strategies and emotion expressivity used by mothers during the waiting task may have influenced children's abilities to regulate their emotions as well as their expressions of emotions during the same task.