Emotion Regulation Among Preschoolers on a Continuum of Risk: The Role of Maternal Emotion Coaching

Abstract

Parental emotion coaching involves acknowledging and validating children's feelings, as well as guiding them on how to manage intense or negative feelings. Although parental emotion coaching has been identified as a potentially important factor for children's emotional development, research into this topic is scant. The present study examined whether maternal emotion coaching can play a mediational role between family risk (i.e. economic disadvantage, family stress, and maltreatment) and emotion regulation in preschoolers. Seventy-four preschoolers, aged 46-58 months, and their maternal caregivers participated in an observational laboratory study, including a narrative task in which mothers ..