Parents' reactions to elementary school chilren's negative emotions: Relations to social and emotional functioning at school

Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, Apr 2002 by Jones, Sarah, Eisenberg, Nancy, Fabes, Richard A, MacKinnon, David P

In the present study, we examined direct or moderated relations of parents' reported reactions to their children's negative emotions with elementary school children's observed emotional responding at school and their social competence and negative emotionality as reported by their teachers. Elementary school children were selected because the control of displays of negative emotion is expected more for elementary than for preschool children and because negative displays of emotion are likely to be more disruptive in the more structured elementary school context. Thus, children's expression and control of negative emotions are likely to be greater contributors to their social competence in elementary school than earlier in development. Moreover, this age group was chosen because findings in regard to parental reactions to elementary school children's negative emotion are limited in number and, for supportive reactions, quite inconsistent. The focal parental reactions included two nonsupportive ones (parenting punitive reactions and minimizing of children's negative emotion) and three supportive ones (parents' emotion-focused [comforting] reactions, problemfocused [problem-solving] reactions, and encouragement of the child's expression of emotion). In general, we expected modest negative relations between parental nonsupportive reactions and positive outcomes for children (i.e., positive affective balance-the ratio of positive to negative expressed emotions-and higher social competence). Further, more negative emotional displays at school and lower social competence were predicted for children prone to frequent or intense negative emotions who were exposed to relatively high levels of parental nonsupportive reactions. These children, who are dispositionally reactive to emotional stimuli, are probably at risk for unregulated negative emotion reactions and are likely to become especially dysregulated if their parents respond to their emotional displays in a nonsupportive manner that increases the children's negative arousal.

In addition, problem-focused parental reactions-which would be expected to promote the use of instrumental problem-solving skills-- were expected to relate to more positive affective balance at school and higher levels of children's social competence. Problem-focused parental reactions were expected to be equally useful to children prone to experience negative emotions because instrumental coping often is an effective means of coping with stress (Compas, Connor, Saltzman, Thomsen, & Wadsworth, 2001).

We were unsure if parental comforting would be positively related to positive socioemotional functioning. By elementary school age, children who are frequently comforted when upset may be especially vulnerable or may not have learned how to manage their negative emotions themselves; such a relation has even been noted with toddlers (Denham, 1993). Although comforting a younger child who has yet to develop self-comforting and other coping skills often may be an appropriate parenting strategy, continued use of this strategy with children prone to negative emotion may deny the children the opportunity to develop their own regulatory skills. These children would then be at a disadvantage in emotionally arousing situations in which the parent is unavailable to provide comfort, such as those that occur at school.