The role of contextual factors in associations between parents' emotion socialization and children's mental health

Abstract Objective We aimed to investigate whether parent and child gender and child age moderated parents' emotion socialization and subsequent child mental health outcomes. Background Children's emotion competence is shaped by parents' emotion socialization processes, including parents' beliefs about children's emotions and emotion‐related parenting practices. Evidence suggests that contextual, that is, parent, and child factors, shape parents' emotion socialization. Method Participants were drawn from the Child and Parent Emotion Study. The sample consisted of N = 1,794 parents (67% mothers) of children aged 1–9 years. Parents completed self‐report surveys in 2019 and 2020. Using Stata, several univariate and multivariate regression models with interactions were tested. Results Fathers reported lower levels of emotion coaching practices and beliefs, and higher levels of emotion dismissing practices and beliefs. Parents of toddlers were less likely to endorse the beliefs that children can control their emotions, autonomously. No other evidence was found for moderating effects of child age or parent and child gender. Emotion dismissing parenting was associated with children's depression symptoms and behavioral problems, and emotion coaching parenting was associated with lower levels of children's behavioral problems, although these associations attenuated in adjusted models. Conclusion Our findings suggest that certain beliefs about emotions change across different periods of child development, and that fathers are at greater risk for maladaptive emotion socialization. Implications Fathers play an important role in children's emotion development. Our findings provide further evidence that offering fathers tailored support may help improve familial outcomes. Our findings also highlight that offering parents education and support after toddlerhood is important; children experience unique milestones and challenges to their emotion regulation after toddlerhood.