Coping flexibility in preschool-aged children: The role of maternal emotion socialization, coping socialization, and coping styles

Previous research has demonstrated that mothers' socialization efforts and modeling of coping styles are related to their children's coping choices. The purpose of this study was to examine whether these relations also held for preschool-aged children's coping flexibility---the ability to adapt coping strategies to a changing stressful situation---and whether these relations were moderated by mother-child relationship quality. Four-and five-year-old children (N = 31) participated in a vignette coping interview and their mothers completed measures of emotion socialization, coping socialization, coping flexibility, and mother-child relationship quality. Results showed that mothers' emotion and coping socialization, but not their coping flexibility, were related to two aspects of children's coping flexibility. Mother-child relationship quality did not moderate these associations. Results are discussed in terms of the developmental progression of coping flexibility and recommendations are made for parenting behaviours that can help engender this skill in children.