Primary caregivers' reactions to their Head Start preschoolers' negative emotions: predicting emotion competence and social competence in a low-income, ethnic minority sample

Abstract

Primary caregivers' reactions to preschoolers' negative emotions and their relation to social and emotion competence were examined in 95 primary caregiver-child dyads from a low-income, primarily African American, Head Start sample. After controlling for primary caregivers' self-reported depressive emotions, disorganized parenting, and harsh parenting, several significant relations were found between caregivers' self-reported reactions to children's negative emotions and teacher ratings of children's emotion and social competence. Helping children cope and reacting with distress to children's negative emotions predicted child emotion lability/negativity and disruptive behavior problems. Caregiver encouragement of emotion expression predicted boys' emotion regulation ability. Emotion regulation fully mediated the effect of caregiver expression encouragement on boys' prosocial behavior.