Building on previous research indicating that among first, third, and fifth graders, older children expect affective expressive behavior to be regulated, a study was made of children's beliefs about rationales for and consequences of regulated affective expressive behavior. Children's beliefs were examined in conjunction with their parents' (1) attitudes towards children's expressive behavior, (2) perception of their own self-monitoring, and (3) perception of their families'"social climate." Participants were 32 children in grades 2, 5, and 8 from an urban West Coast parochial school and their parents. Children were individually interviewed using as stimuli four photographed scenarios of children involved in conflicts in which the target child in the scenario could respond with a facial expression that was discrepant from internal affect. Two questions posed referred to the scenarios and a third referred to the child's belief about his or her own emotional experiences. Parents individually responded to an author-developed questionnaire, the Parent Attitude toward Child Expressiveness Scale (PACES); to Snyder's Self-Monitoring Scale (SMS); and to Moo's Family Environment Scale (FES). Affective expressive behavior sampled in PACES includes anger, distress, fear, anxiety or nervousness, interest or curiosity, happiness, and disgust. Data were analyzed by stepwise regression analyses for each child variable: 11 predictor variables were entered in the equation. Results are discussed and a schematic model of the developmental differentiation of emotional experience is appended. (RH)