The relationship between dispositional mindfulness and emotion regulation in children

Emotional competence is a core component of school success for all children, and the ability to regulate one’s emotions is an important skill in developing emotional competence. Dispositional mindfulness may be an underlying cognitive orientation that allows children to be successful at regulating their emotions, because it involves both attention and cognitive components that influence how individuals perceive and react to their emotions. Mindfulness has been shown to have a robust relationship with emotional functioning in adults and is being incorporated into many treatment approaches for a variety of physical and psychological difficulties. The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between dispositional mindfulness and emotion regulation in children in grades 5-7. Ninety-one students completed self-reports of dispositional mindfulness and emotion regulation and completed a performance assessment of emotional awareness. In addition, one parent for each child completed a parent report of the child’s emotion regulation. Path analysis demonstrated that dispositional mindfulness predicted emotion regulation, both through the child’s self-report and the parent’s assessment of the child’s emotion regulation abilities. Emotion regulation as assessed by the parent report also predicted a child’s level of emotional awareness and sophistication of emotional understanding. Identifying the factors that help children become successful regulators of their emotions may inform the ways in which school psychologists and teachers support the emotional development of the students they serve.