The maternal affective environment to which children are exposed, conceptualized by (1) percentage of total emotional displays (happy, sad, angry, tense, or tender) and (2) global indices of current maternal psychosocial functioning, is likely to be related to children's expression of emotions and overall social-emotional competence. Thus, prevalence of several maternal emotions were predicted to be related to other measures of mother's psychosocial functioning, prevalence of children's emotions, and indices of children's social-emotional competence. Emotional displays of 29 mothers and their toddlers were coded on videotape. Children's social-emotional competence was rated globally during situations where mother was absent. Self-report and rating measures of each mother's psychosocial functioning were also obtained. All predictions were upheld in the results. The relations of the affective environment to children's emotions and behavior were delineated by this methodology; maternal affective environment is related to concurrent indices of the child's social-emotional well-being. (Author/DST)