Psychology Commons^™

Parental Affect Profiles Predict Child Emotion Regulation And Classroom Adjustment In Families Experiencing Homelessness, Madelyn H. Labella, Rebecca Distefano, Jillian S. Merrick, Jyothi L. Ramakrishnan, Eric L. Thibodeau, Ann S. Masten

Arts & Sciences Faculty Publications

Parenting shapes the development of emotion regulation skills in early childhood, laying a key foundation for social-emotional adjustment. Unfortunately, high adversity exposure may disrupt parental emotion socialization practices and children's regulatory development. The current study used variable- and person-centered approaches to evaluate links among parental emotion expressiveness, children's observed emotion regulation, and teacher-reported adjustment among 214 4- to 6-year-old children experiencing homelessness, an indicator of high cumulative risk and acute adversity. Structured parent-child interaction tasks were recorded on site in emergency shelters over the summer and micro-socially coded for parent and child expressions of anger, positive affect, and internalizing distress. …