The Mediating Role of Mothers’ Emotion Socialization Between Mothers’ Emotional Dysregulation, Children’s Negative Emotionality, Coparenting and Children’s Emotion Regulation: Focusing on Determinants of Parenting Model

Objectives: This study examined how mothers’ emotional dysregulation, children’s negative emotionality, and coparenting affected mothers’ emotion socialization using Belsky’s determinants of parenting model. Furthermore, the mediating role of mothers’ emotion socialization in the relationships between mothers, children, and family characteristics, and children’s emotion regulation were verified.Methods: Participants were 170 mothers of children aged 4-5 years. Mothers completed questionnaires measuring their own emotional dysregulation, children’s negative emotionality, coparenting, their reactions to children’s negative emotions, and children’s emotion regulation. Descriptive and correlational analyses were conducted using SPSS 28.0. Structural equation modeling and bootstrapping for mediating paths were performed using Mplus 8.8.Results: Mothers’ emotional dysregulation, children’s negative emotionality and coparenting significantly predicted mothers’ supportive reactions. Unsupportive reactions were predicted by mothers’ emotional dysregulation and coparenting, but not by children’s negative emotionality. Children’s emotion regulation was positively related to mothers’ supportive reactions and coparenting, and negatively related to children’s negative emotionality and unsupportive reactions. Mothers’ emotional dysregulation was not directly significant. Supportive reactions significantly mediated the effects of mothers’ emotional dysregulation, children’s negative emotionality, and coparenting on children’s emotion regulation. Mother’s unsupportive reactions mediated pathways from mothers’ emotional dysregulation and coparenting only.Conclusions: The study findings identified factors influencing mothers’ emotion socialization using Belsky’s determinants of parenting model, specifically the distinct roles of supportive and unsupportive reactions. These findings underscore that interventions to improve children’s emotion regulation should target mothers’ emotion socialization and consider relevant mother, child, and family characteristics.