Predictable patterns in early parent-child interactions may help lay the foundation for how children learn to self-regulate. The present study examined contingencies between maternal teaching and directives and child compliance in mother-child problem-solving interactions at age 3.5 and whether they predicted children's behavioral regulation and…

This study investigated the relations among shyness, physiological dysregulation, and maternal emotion socialization in predicting children's social behavior with peers during the kindergarten year (N = 66; 29 girls). For shy children, interactions with peers represent potential stressors that can elicit negative emotion and physiological…

The present study demonstrated that a more differentiated view of positive parenting practices is necessary in the study of children's acquisition of self-regulation. Here, the unique contributions of maternal warmth and responsiveness to distress to children's self-regulation were tested in a sample of 102 German mothers and their kindergarten…

Parent-reported reactions to children's negative emotions and child negative emotionality were investigated as correlates of internalizing and externalizing behaviors. Children (N = 107) and their parents participated in a short-term longitudinal study of social development. Mothers and fathers independently completed questionnaires assessing…

The aim of the present investigation was to examine parent-child synchrony and its link to children's communicative competence and self-control. Data were collected from 80 families with toddler age children (41 girls, 39 boys) during a laboratory assessment. Five components of parent-child dyadic synchrony were assessed during a semi-structured…

Preschool-age children's ability to verbally generate strategies for regulating anger and sadness, and to recognize purported effective strategies for these emotions, were examined in relation to child factors (child age, temperament, and language ability) and maternal emotion socialization (supportiveness and structuring in response to child…

This study examined the relations of parent-youth agreement and disagreement during a joint problem-solving task and multi-methodological indices of socioemotional outcomes in adolescents (mean age = 13). One hundred and sixty-seven parents and their adolescent children participated. Each parent-youth pair played the interactive game "Jenga", and…

This research examined the role of mothers' cognitions about children's self-control in their responses to children's helplessness. Mothers and their four-year-old children (N = 109) were asked to work on a difficult task in the laboratory. Mothers' hostility and warmth as well as children's helpless (vs. mastery) behavior were coded every minute.…

Shortly after the birth of their infants, teenage working-class mothers were assessed on attitudes toward the need for deference to family authority (respect-based control) and anger. Their children's internalizing and externalizing problems and self-esteem were assessed approximately 12 years later. High respect-based control was linked to higher…

The attainment of self-regulatory skills during the toddler years is an understudied issue, especially among low-income children. The present study used growth modeling to examine the change over time and the final status in children's abilities to self-regulate, in a sample of 2,441 low-income children aged 14 to 36 months. Positive growth in…

This study investigated the socialization of children's emotion regulation in physically maltreating and non-maltreating mother-child dyads (N = 80 dyads). Mother-child dyads participated in the parent-child emotion interaction task (Shipman & Zeman, 1999) in which they talked about emotionally-arousing situations. The PCEIT was coded for maternal…

This article reviews current literature examining associations between components of the family context and children and adolescents' emotion regulation (ER). The review is organized around a tripartite model of familial influence. Firstly, it is posited that children learn about ER through observational learning, modeling and social referencing.…

Two studies addressed the normative aspects of attachments to mothers and fathers in middle childhood. Using both cross-sectional and longitudinal comparisons, we tested the hypothesis that children show no changes in perceptions of availability of attachment figures across the later middle childhood years, but do utilize attachment figures less…

The present study investigated the effects of situational (child situational emotions) and dispositional (child temperament) child variables on mothers' regulation of their own hostile (anger) and nonhostile (sadness and anxiety) emotions. Participants included 94 low and middle income mothers and their children (41 girls; 53 boys) aged 3 to 6…