Supportive Emotion Socialization Mitigates Risk Between Maternal Emotion Regulation Difficulties and Preschooler Emotion Regulation

Few studies have examined protective maternal factors that may mitigate the intergenerational transmission of risk of maternal emotion regulation difficulties on child outcomes. The current study tested whether supportive maternal emotion socialization moderated the association between maternal emotion regulation difficulties and child emotion regulation behaviors. Participants were 68 mother-preschooler (aged 36–60 months) dyads that were oversampled for maternal symptoms of borderline personality disorder, in order to achieve greater variability in the range of maternal emotion regulation difficulties. Maternal emotion regulation difficulties and supportive emotion socialization behaviors were measured using self-report questionnaires, and child emotion regulation was coded during a frustration-eliciting blocked goal task. Results partially supported study hypotheses, such that trait maternal emotion regulation difficulties were associated with child displays of sadness at low levels of supportive maternal emotion socialization, but not when mothers engaged in higher levels of supportive emotion socialization. These findings suggest that maternal emotion regulation and emotion socialization are distinctly related to child emotion expression and regulatory actions, and that adaptive maternal emotion socialization may mitigate some of the adverse transgenerational impacts of impaired emotion regulation. Highlights Examined supportive emotion socialization as a moderator of maternal emotion regulation difficulties and preschoolers’ emotion displays and regulatory actions. Only a moderate correlation between maternal trait emotion regulation difficulties and supportive responses to children’s negative emotions. Supportive emotion socialization moderated the relation between maternal emotion regulation difficulties and children’s expression of sadness. Future work should focus on adaptive emotion socialization as a buffer between maternal emotion regulation difficulties and adverse child outcomes.