The Relation Of The Parental Meta-emotion Philosophy And Children’s Problem Behavior Among Preschoolers:the Moderated Effect Of Emotionality

Family is an important and initialsite for children’s socialization in early childhood.In the family,parents exert the greatest influence on child’s development.Parental meta-emotional philosophy has broad implications for children’s emotional well being and social behavior.The theory of family ecosystems emphasizes that parents influence children’s development,while children subsystem can also influence parents subsystem.If the interaction between children and parents is well established,it will have a positive effect on the development of children.Otherwise,it will have a negative effect the development of children.According to the goodness-of-fit model,the individual with different characteristics will show different reactions in the face of same parenting style.Based on these two theoretical models and the existing empirical research,this study aimed to explore the relationship between parental meta-emotional philosophy(emotion-coaching,emotion noninvolvement,emotion-dismissing,and emotion-dysfunction)and children’s problem behavior(externalizing problem,internalizing problem),as well as the moderated effect of children’s gender and emotionality(positive emotionality,negative emotionality),especially the negative emotions of the dimension(angry,discomfort,fear and sadness)on the relationship between parental meta-emotional philosophy and the problem behavior of children.This study examined relationship between parental meta-emotional philosophy and preschool children’s problem behavior,and explored the moderated effect of children’s gender and emotionality,using longitudinal design.Fathers and mothers of four hundred and fifty children reportedtheir own meta-emotional philosophy,and children’s problem behavior and emotionality were reported by mothers,when children were about 5 and 6 years old,respectively.The results showed that:(1)Parental meta-emotional philosophy and children’s problem behavior,as well as children’s emotionality were moderately stable across two wave measurement.(2)Maternal meta-emotional philosophy was associated with children’s problem behavior at the same time point.However,paternal meta-emotional philosophy,as well as children’s emotionality,was partial associated with children’s problem behavior at the same time point.(3)Maternal emotion-coaching philosophy significantly and negatively predicted children’s externalizing problem behavior.Maternal emotion noninvolvement significantly and positively predicted children’s externalizing problem,and marginally positively predicted internalizing problem behavior.(4)The interaction of maternal meta-emotional philosophy and children’s positive emotionality significantly predicted children’s problem behavior.For children with higher level of positive emotionality,maternal emotion-coaching philosophy significantly and negatively predicted children’s externalizing problem.Likewise,for children with lower level of positive emotionality,maternal emotion-coaching philosophy significantly and negatively predicted children’s externalizing problem,too.(5)The interaction of parental meta-emotional philosophy and negative emotionality of the dimension significantly predicted children’s problem behavior.For children with higher level of sadness,maternal emotion dismissing philosophy significantly and positively predicted children’s internalizing problem.For children with low lever of sadness,maternal emotion dismissing philosophy marginally positively predict children’s internalizing problem.Meanwhile,For children with higher level of fear,maternal emotion noninvolvement philosophy significantly and positively predicted children’s externalizing problem and internalizing problem.but not for children with lower level of fear.In addition to,For children with higher level of discomfort,maternal emotion noninvolvement philosophy significantly and positively predicted children’s extermalizing problem,but not for children with lower level of discomfort.Likewise,For children with higher level of angry,paternal emotion noninvolvement philosophy significantly and positively predicted children’s externalizing problem,but not for children with lower level of angry.Furthermore,For children with high level of sadness,paternal emotion noninvolvement philosophy significantly and positively predicted children’s internalizing problem,but not for children with lower level of sadness.In addition to,For children with higher level of discomfort,paternal emotion dismissing philosophy significantly and positively predicted children’s internalizing problem,but not for children with lower level of discomfort.(6)Children’s gender moderated the longitudinal relationship between parental meta-emotional philosophy and preschool children’s problem behavior.Maternal emotion-coaching philosophy marginally negatively predicted boy’s externalizing problem,but not girl’s externalizing problem.Moreover,maternal emotion noninvolvement philosophy positively predicted girl’s externalizing problem,but not boy’s externalizing problem.Meanwhile,paternal emotion-dysfunction philosophy significantly and positively predicted boy’s internalizing problem,but negatively predicted girl’s internalizing problem.