It can be argued that the most important influence on children’s social and emotional development is the parent–child relationship. Starting before birth, parental history, parenting behavior, and parent–child interactions influence children’s development, growth, and adjustment to their ever-changing world. In this chapter, we focus on how parenting influences social and emotional development, with a focus on emotion socialization (ES), the ways in which caregivers teach children about emotions and emotion regulation within the self, others, and relationships. ES lays the groundwork for future social interactions and shapes both normative and atypical development, especially children’s emotion regulation abilities (Eisenberg et al., Reference Eisenberg, Cumberland and Spinrad1998a; Morris et al., Reference Morris, Criss, Silk and Houltberg2017a; Spinrad et al., Reference Spinrad, Morris and Luthar2020). Indeed, children’s successful management of negative emotions such as anger and sadness has been linked to academic achievement, social competence, resilience, mental and physical health, and success later in life. In contrast, children’s difficulties regulating emotions have been linked to internalizing and externalizing problems, relationship difficulties, substance abuse, and adjustment difficulties more broadly (Eisenberg & Morris, Reference Eisenberg, Morris and Kail2002; Zeman et al., Reference Zeman, Cassano, Perry-Parrish and Stegall2006). It should be noted that parents’ own emotion regulation is key to caregiving and the ES process, and children’s learning about emotions often occurs by observing parents and modeling their behavior (Morris et al., Reference Morris, Silk, Steinberg, Myers and Robinson2007). Moreover, there is a nature and nurture component of ES due to genetic similarities among parents and children paired with parenting practices and socialization techniques that influence emotional development within both social and biological contexts.

It is also important to note that children are active in the ES process and in their own social and emotional development (Bell, Reference Bell1979). For example, children’s temperamental predispositions toward emotionality and regulation, perceptions of parents and social situations, choice of social interactions, and history with caregivers all influence emotional development and emotion regulation (Morris et al., Reference Morris, Silk, Steinberg, Myers and Robinson2007). The ways in which children interpret ES practices and their perceptions of the parent–child relationship play significant roles in the developmental processes discussed in this chapter.

We utilize a developmental lens to discuss ES in this chapter across different developmental periods: infancy and early childhood (0–6); middle childhood (6–11); and adolescence and young adulthood (11–25). These age ranges are broad and somewhat arbitrary, but provide a general guide for thinking about ES across different developmental stages, and studies discussed in relevant sections generally include participants in these age ranges. We begin the chapter by discussing the study of ES, defining important constructs and discussing relevant theories and measures. Next, we discuss ES across developmental periods. Then, we have sections on the importance of fathers and culture in the ES process. We end with examples of parent education programs with a focus on ES and emotion regulation and suggest next steps in research, practice, and policy related to social and emotional development.

The Study of Emotion Socialization

When children are young, attachment to a caregiver is one of the primary influences on children’s emotional development. Children who are securely attached feel emotionally safe, and caregiver responses are typically predictable and responsive. In contrast, children with insecure attachments may not know what to expect emotionally from a caregiver, resulting in either avoidant behavior that minimizes emotional expression or emotion dysregulation in response to inconsistency which may reflect efforts to get the caregiver to respond to the child’s needs (Morris et al., Reference Morris, Houltberg, Criss, Bosler, Centifanti and Williams2017b). As children grow older, parenting is often examined in terms of parenting style, indicative of the emotional climate of the parent–child relationship. Authoritative parents tend to be warm and accepting, typically encouraging independence and acceptance of emotional expressions. In contrast, authoritarian parents are more likely to punish a child for expressions of negative emotions, and may be overly harsh in their response to emotions (Morris et al., Reference Morris, Cui, Steinberg, Larzelere, Morris and Harrist2013). Indeed, parenting style can be thought of as a constellation of parental attitudes toward the child, predicting situation-specific parenting practices (Darling & Steinberg, Reference Darling and Steinberg1993).

Emotion socialization (ES) is broadly defined as socializing behaviors that influence a child’s learning regarding emotion experience, expression, and regulation, and emotion-related behavior, in a manner consistent with socializers’ beliefs, values, and goals about emotion with a goal of functioning well and adapting to society (Eisenberg et al., Reference Eisenberg, Spinrad and Cumberland1998b). ES practices occur within the context of the parent–child relationship, and parental behaviors may be interpreted differently by children depending on attachment or parenting style. Moreover, there is strong evidence that ES impacts social and emotional adjustment across various domains of development regardless of parenting style (see Spinrad et al., Reference Spinrad, Morris and Luthar2020). Gottman et al. (Reference Gottman, Katz and Hooven1996) categorized parental ES as either emotion coaching or emotion dismissing (see Table 4.1). Emotion coaching parents tend to be accepting of emotions, help children problem-solve in emotional situations, and label and talk through emotional experiences with their children. Further, emotion coaching parents are more likely to be authoritative in their approach to ES as exhibited by high levels of responsiveness to their children’s individual developmental needs and high levels of warmth and support in how they react to their children’s negative emotions (Morris et al., Reference Morris, Cui, Steinberg, Larzelere, Morris and Harrist2013). In contrast, emotion dismissing parents typically punish children for expressing emotions or minimize or neglect children’s feelings.

Furthermore, emotion regulation develops as the child observes parents’ emotion expression and sees parents as social referencing agents in regulating their own emotions (Eisenberg et al., Reference Eisenberg, Cumberland and Spinrad1998a). Family emotional climate is informed by the parent–child relationship/attachment, parenting styles, family expressivity, and martial/couple relations. Parents also impact children’s emotion regulation by directly reacting to children’s emotion, supportive coaching, encouraging emotion expression, and teaching emotion regulation strategies. (Morris et al., Reference Morris, Silk, Steinberg, Myers and Robinson2007). Numerous studies have found that the relation between ES and children’s adjustment is mediated by children’s emotion regulation, indicating that one important mechanism through which parenting impacts children’s development is via its impact on children’s emotion regulation abilities (Morris et al., Reference Morris, Criss, Silk and Houltberg2017a; Spinrad et al., Reference Spinrad, Morris and Luthar2020).

In a recent parent–child emotion regulation dynamics model, Morris et al. (Reference Morris, Cui, Criss, Simmons, Cole and Hollenstein2018) furthered the theoretical understanding of ES by emphasizing the dynamic and dyadic processes involved in the development of emotion regulation, highlighting that moment-to-moment physiological and behavioral dynamics during real-time parent-child interactions are one core mechanism of how ecological contexts (including culture, neighborhood, school, peer, and family, etc.) are linked to short- and long-term development of emotion regulation and psychosocial adjustment. Indeed, physiological processes (e.g., heart rate, hormonal levels) that occur in a dyadic context are often indicative of synchrony/attunement of physiological and behavioral mechanisms related to emotionality and emotion regulation (see Feldman, Reference Feldman2012).

To assess parental ES practices, researchers have primarily used child reports of parenting practices or parent self-report questionnaires such as the Coping with Children’s Negative Emotions Scale (CCNES; Fabes et al., Reference Fabes, Poulin, Eisenberg and Madden-Derdich2002) and Emotions as a Child Scale (EAC; Magai & O’Neal, Reference Magai and O’Neal1997). These scales have typically been used among parents of school-age children and adolescents to capture supportive responses to children’s negative emotions such as support/reward; emotion- and problem-focused reactions; and unsupportive reactions such as neglect, magnify, and punitive and minimization reactions (see Table 4.1). In addition, other scholars have incorporated Gottman’s meta-emotion philosophy and developed open-ended interviews to inquire about parents’ feelings, their reactions, and the reasons for their reactions when their children express negative emotions (e.g., Raval & Martini, Reference Raval and Martini2011). Structured observational recordings of parent–child discussions of emotional events have been coded to assess emotion coaching and dismissing behaviors in both the laboratory (e.g., Cassano & Zeman, Reference Cassano and Zeman2010) and the home (e.g., Havighurst et al., Reference Havighurst, Wilson, Harley, Prior and Kehoe2010). Researchers have even used naturalistic observations of parent–child interactions (e.g., Cole et al., Reference Cole, Tamang and Shrestha2006) and coded recordings of families’ daily lives and parent–child interactions to capture parental ES (e.g., Sperling & Repetti, Reference Sperling and Repetti2018). Recently, researchers have proposed real-time affect dynamics models of parent–child interactions and explored the physiological processes underlying ES (Lougheed et al., Reference Lougheed, Brinberg, Ram and Hollenstein2020; Morris et al., Reference Morris, Cui, Criss, Simmons, Cole and Hollenstein2018). Generally, supportive and unsupportive ES is linked to different physiological dynamic change patterns (e.g., Zhang et al., Reference Zhang, Cui, Han and Yan2017).

Emotion Socialization across Developmental Periods

While the ES process occurs across development, various developmental considerations are important to note specifically during infancy, middle childhood, and adolescence and young adulthood. Additionally, each of these developmental phases has unique themes to consider, including biology, psychopathology, and neurodevelopment.

The Role of Fathers in Emotion Socialization

Despite the exponential growth in our understanding of ES over the past two decades, the role of fathers in ES processes continues to be understudied. Considering both the similarities and differences found between maternal and paternal ES processes in parenting, additional research is needed on the independent effects of paternal ES, the relationships between ES effects in the co-parenting dyad, and the role of child sex on paternal ES effects (e.g., father–daughter versus father–son). Notwithstanding existing gaps in the literature, recent studies have helped to identify differences in paternal ES processes during various stages of life, including infancy and early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence and early adulthood.

First, considering infancy and early childhood, findings regarding the role of fathers in ES are encouraging. For example, McElwain et al. (Reference McElwain, Halberstadt and Volling2007) found that fathers who were supportive in their reactions to their child’s negative emotions had children with heightened emotional understanding, even after accounting for the mother’s ES. Similarly, positive paternal parenting has been linked to children’s effortful control after statistically controlling for maternal parenting (Karreman et al., Reference Karreman, van Tuijl, van Aken and Deković2008). Attachment security with fathers has been found to be directly associated with children’s emotion regulation behavior in frustrating contexts, and children with more secure relationships with their father were found to regulate their emotions better during challenging lab tasks (Boldt et al., Reference Boldt, Goffin and Kochanska2020). Moreover, these supportive paternal responses to emotions in early childhood predicted better emotion regulation in early adolescence, while non-supportive father responses tended to predict higher aggression and engagement with delinquent peers (Godleski et al., Reference Godleski, Eiden, Shisler and Livingston2020).

In middle childhood, studies have revealed notable differences between maternal and paternal ES strategies. For example, Cassano et al. (Reference Cassano, Perry‐Parrish and Zeman2007) found that fathers tend to respond to their child’s sadness by utilizing minimalizing strategies, while mothers tend to use excessive encouragement. Similarly, Eisenberg et al. (Reference Eisenberg, Fabes and Murphy1996) found that maternal problem-focused reactions were associated with better coping and social skills and girls’ popularity, and minimizing reactions were linked to poor social skills and poor coping skills. Surprisingly, paternal minimizing and problem-focused reactions were associated with poor social skills and low popularity, which may indicate that daughters’ problems in social competence trigger paternal use of problem-focused reactions. Regarding child outcomes, studies have shown that fathers who are highly balanced (i.e., moderate warmth/responsiveness and non-supportive reactions, below average expressive encouragement) in their responses to their child’s emotions tend to have children who engage in high levels of cognitive appraisal of emotions in middle childhood (Wang et al., Reference Wang, Liang, Zhou and Zou2019). Considering the unique contributions of paternal ES, it has been argued that while mothers and fathers tend to contribute to more similarities than differences in emotion regulation during middle childhood, each parent offers unique stances on emotion that, when adaptive, ultimately afford beneficial experiences in the emotional development of the child (McElwain et al., Reference McElwain, Halberstadt and Volling2007).

During adolescence and early adulthood, although mothers tend to be closer to their children and more involved in their lives compared to fathers (Branje et al., Reference Branje, Laursen, Collins and Vangelisti2013), fathers still play a critical role in emotional development. For example, McEwen and Flouri (Reference McEwen and Flouri2009) reported that high levels of father warmth and low levels of father overprotection and psychological control were related to low levels of difficulties in emotion regulation among adolescents (aged 11–18 years). Using a college student sample, Lugo-Candelas et al. (Reference Lugo-Candelas, Harvey, Breaux and Herbert2016) found that high levels of father supportive ES and low levels of father unsupportive ES were related to poor student mental health (e.g., depression, anxiety, substance use). Few published studies have examined whether father socialization is incrementally related to adjustment after controlling for mothers’ parenting. However, one study using a longitudinal design in which mother and father parenting were analysed simultaneously, Van Lissa et al. (Reference Van Lissa, Keizer, Van Lier, Meeus and Branje2019) found that the intercept for father support was more strongly related to adolescent emotion regulation compared to maternal support. In addition, the intercept for paternal psychological control was significantly and negatively related to emotion regulation after controlling for the intercept for maternal psychological control. This evidence suggests that fathers’ emotion-related parenting may afford unique socialization benefits above and beyond that of mothers during adolescence, though this may vary depending on the dimension of parenting.

Cross-Cultural Considerations

Understanding the cultural meaning of parental ES practices is critical, as ES practices occur within context and culture. Studies adopting ES theories and measures developed in U.S. populations to other cultures have revealed both similarities and differences regarding the importance of supportive and unsupportive ES. For example, minimizing and invalidating reactions were not significantly linked to emotion regulation or internalizing or externalizing problems in Chinese children and adolescents in several studies (e.g., Tao et al., Reference Tao, Zhou and Wang2010). It is possible that certain ES practices may not be perceived as negative or intrusive in the Chinese culture when combined with other parenting behaviors. Indeed, Wang et al. (Reference Wang, Liang, Zhou and Zou2019) found that paternal minimization was positively linked to Chinese adolescents’ emotion regulation skills when it was used in combination with high problem-focused and emotion-focused responses. Further, parental ES efforts marked by expressive encouragement and minimizing reactions/responses may have different cultural implications in China compared to other cultures (Wang et al., Reference Wang, Liang, Zhou and Zou2019), as inhibition or suppression of emotion expression is valued in Eastern culture for maintaining social harmony (Matsumoto et al., Reference Matsumoto, Yoo and Fontaine2008). Using a college student sample, Lugo-Candelas et al. (Reference Lugo-Candelas, Harvey, Breaux and Herbert2016) reported that maternal supportive ES was negatively related to student mental health symptoms among Latino Americans but not European Americans or African Americans. Moreover, maternal unsupportive ES was positively related to student mental health symptoms among European Americans and African Americans, but not among Latino Americans. These findings suggest that certain parental ES efforts may be more or less salient in different cultural or ethnic groups.

Researchers also have expanded ES theories and adapted ES measures to identify culturally salient parental ES practices. For example, researchers adapted the CCNES to Chinese and Indian parents by adding more culturally relevant emotion-eliciting scenarios and identified culturally relevant responses, including supportive responses such as explanation-oriented and reflection/moral-enhancement responses and unsupportive responses such as scolding and not talking to the child for a brief period (e.g., Chan et al., Reference Chan, Bowes and Wyver2009; Raval et al., Reference Raval, Li, Deo and Hu2018). Among urban, educated, middle-class families in China and India, parents may establish goals such as relatedness/connectedness and autonomy/independence, which are used to train their children to understand the impact of their behavior and explain how their emotion regulation influences relationships with others (Raval et al., Reference Raval, Li, Deo and Hu2018). Such socialization efforts are referred to as reflection-enhancement (Chan, Reference Chan2012), which derives from Chao (Reference Chao1994)’s concept of Guan (training) and involves socializing emotions with moral rules. Asian parents are likely to use secondary responses such as psychologically controlling strategies, scolding, or not talking to the child when their primary training practices do not work (Raval & Martini, Reference Raval and Martini2011; Raval et al., Reference Raval, Raval and Deo2014). Indeed, Chan (Reference Chan2012) found that among Hong Kong Chinese mothers, high levels of endorsement of the value Guan were linked to greater use of both supportive and unsupportive ES practices. Such findings demonstrate that the Hong Kong mothers’ endorsing style of Guan may adopt coaching strategies when their children show negative emotions. However, these mothers may utilize punitive and minimizing strategies when supportive strategies fail.

Cultural differences regarding the use of ES may be due to that fact that parental values and goals influence emotion-related parenting styles and behaviors. For example, Chan et al. (Reference Chan, Bowes and Wyver2009) found that mothers emphasizing the relational emotional competence of promoting interpersonal harmony were more likely to use both the coaching and emotion-dismissing approaches and less likely to use the emotion encouraging approach. Mothers emphasizing individualistic emotional competence of promoting self-esteem use both coaching and emotion encouraging approaches and were less likely to use the emotion dismissing approach. Further, Chan (Reference Chan2012) found that mothers who believed that children should be exposed to different emotional experiences (more of a Western value) were more likely to use supportive strategies and less likely to use unsupportive responses. In contrast, mothers who did not believe that parents should play an active role in emotion teaching used more unsupportive responses than supportive responses. Indian mothers were more likely to emphasize interconnectedness than autonomy in the socialization goals and on the CCNES, and endorsed the explanation-based responses more than the problem-focused responses (Raval et al., Reference Raval, Raval and Deo2014). Regarding the effects of ES, overall findings among Eastern populations were consistent with those found among Western samples (Raval et al., Reference Raval, Li, Deo and Hu2018). However, the implications of some specific responses on adjustment outcomes may differ across cultures. For example, expression encouragement in Asian samples was positively related to unsupportive responses, and it was not related to child outcomes (Raval et al., Reference Raval, Li, Deo and Hu2018). Problem-focused responses were not significantly related to youth outcomes among Indian families (Raval et al., Reference Raval, Raval and Deo2014). Such findings suggest that broader social, political, and economic factors may shape parents’ socialization goals and meta-emotion beliefs (Raval & Walker, Reference Raval and Walker2019), which in turn may influence socialization practices (Raval, et al., Reference Raval, Li, Deo and Hu2018). Further, the links between ES practices and child outcomes may also vary by cultural contexts.

To better understand ES across cultures, researchers have made efforts to adopt a grounded theory approach involving parent–child conversations about emotions. For example, home visitors of the same cultural backgrounds were sent to Tamang and Brahman village households in Nepal to observe three-, four-, and five-year-old children (Cole et al., Reference Cole, Tamang and Shrestha2006). Social interactions between children and their primary caregivers were coded based on the observation of narratives. Nepali caregivers’ responses to children’s anger and shame included ignoring, teaching, scolding, teasing, cajoling/coaxing, and nurturing. A similar narrative approach was taken to study emotion talk among native and immigrant Chinese families as well as American families. In a series of studies by Wang, the scholar asked mothers and their three-year-old children to talk about shared memories of positive and negative emotional events or asked mothers to tell a story with their children using a picture book (Wang, Reference Wang2013). Coded mother and child emotion talk demonstrated a variety of major ES strategies, i.e., emotion attributions (language ascribing an emotional state or reaction to the child or the main character of the story), emotion explanations (language explaining the causes and consequences of emotions), and emotion criticism (language focusing on installing proper behavior by using moral lessons). Such bottom-up approaches capture nuances of parental ES practices in different cultural contexts.

Taken together, there are both similarities and differences in the ES goals and practices across cultures. Researchers adopting and applying existing ES theoretical models and measures to a different culture should bear in mind that both parents’ understandings of the same ES practices and the implications of some ES practices on child developmental outcomes may differ. Thus, parental values and goals in the specific cultural context should be considered. Further, the endeavor to search for culturally salient ES goals and practices is warranted, particularly using grounded theory to understand ES across contexts and cultures.

Programs and Interventions Targeting Emotion Socialization and Regulation

Considering the impact of parental ES behaviors on child emotion regulation and adjustment, a number of parent and child interventions have been developed featuring content and practices designed specifically to target parents’ ES behavior and practices (Morris et al., Reference Morris, Jespersen, Cosgrove, Ratliff and Kerr2020). Common themes found within these interventions include teaching parents how to aid their child in identifying and labeling emotions, improving children’s emotion coping strategies, and instruction on how parents can respond to their children’s emotional expressions in ways that are supportive, rather than dismissive or punitive (Porzig-Drummond et al., Reference Porzig-Drummond, Stevenson and Stevenson2014).

One notable aspect found to contribute to the success of these interventions is the inclusion of ES and emotion regulation as a foundational intervention priority, rather than as an add-on to a previously established program (Maliken & Katz, Reference Maliken and Katz2013). With this finding in mind, it may be advisable for those developing interventions and programs related to emotion regulation to build outward, with goals related to ES and emotion regulation at the core (Hajal & Paley, Reference Hajal and Paley2020). The number of ES and emotion regulation-based interventions continues to grow, as does the body of evidence indicating that interventions targeting parents’ emotion understanding and emotion regulation are capable of predicting improvements in parental emotion-related socialization behaviors and child emotion regulation capacities (Eisenberg, Reference Eisenberg2020; Hajal & Paley, Reference Hajal and Paley2020). Indeed, parents who possess greater competence in regulating their own emotions tend to be better prepared for assisting their children’s emotional abilities (Zachary et al., Reference Zachary, Jones, McKee, Baucom and Forehand2019). For example, parents with emotion regulation difficulties experienced challenges in employing newly acquired skills with their children (Maliken & Katz, Reference Maliken and Katz2013). Thus, asking emotionally vulnerable parents to implement emotion-based training with their children can be ineffective or even counterproductive (Hajal & Paley, Reference Hajal and Paley2020).

In Table 4.2, we provide examples of interventions designed primarily for or featuring components related to enhancing parents’ ES behaviors and subsequent child emotion regulation. These interventions were shaped by various theoretical perspectives (e.g., family systems, attachment) and were designed to target various individuals/systems in the family, including the child, the parent, the parent–child relationship, or the family system. This list is not exhaustive. The interventions were identified in reviews of parenting interventions designed to cultivate secure parent–child relationships and enhance child adjustment through emotion regulation-based practices (Hajal & Paley, Reference Hajal and Paley2020). It should be noted that this overview does not include therapeutic methods such as parent–child interaction therapy, cognitive behavioral treatments, or trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy. For additional information on these treatment approaches, see a review by Hajal and Paley (Reference Hajal and Paley2020).

Attachment Biobehavioral Catch-Up (ABC; Dozier et al., Reference Dozier, Lindhiem, Lewis, Bick, Bernard and Peloso2009) was developed to assist caregivers of infants and toddlers who have experienced early emotional adversity, while improving the child’s attachment and emotional expression. ABC emphasizes teaching parents how to interpret and respond to their young child’s inconsistent emotional cues. This intervention helps parents become aware of their own emotional responses to their child’s potentially ambiguous emotions and to reframe the responses in an adaptive way by considering the child’s emotional history. One key feature of this intervention is an emphasis on in-the-moment feedback from program facilitators to allow teaching and practice opportunities in real time. Primary outcomes associated with the ABC intervention include improved parent–child attachment, increased child emotion expression, and enhanced emotionally supportive parenting (Berlin et al., Reference Berlin, Shanahan and Appleyard Carmody2014).

Circle of Security (COS; Powell et al., Reference Powell, Cooper, Hoffman and Marvin2013) is an attachment-based intervention that is delivered in small groups with a primary focus of helping children (ages 0–5 years) build healthy and secure attachment relationships with their caregivers. This program focuses on helping parents separate their own personal attachment experiences from the current attachment needs of their child. Parents are also taught skills for self-calming to respond to their child in a more supportive and sensitive manner. COS has been found to contribute to decreased unsupportive emotional parental responses and enhanced parent–child attachment and child emotional functioning (Cassidy et al., Reference Cassidy, Brett and Gross2017).

Minding the Baby (MTB; Slade et al., Reference Slade, Sadler, De Dios-Kenn, Webb, Currier-Ezepchick and Mayes2005) is another attachment-based program developed for mothers of infants and toddlers who have had traumatic experiences. MTB is delivered one-on-one in the home by either a nurse or social worker. One primary goal of this intervention is to increase mothers’ awareness of both their own and their child’s mental and emotional states. With special attention to the potentially vulnerable states of the mother, MTB attempts to improve the mother’s ability to read her child’s basic emotional cues and respond sensitively without potentially becoming overwhelmed by previous trauma. Evaluation of MTB has revealed program-based increases in maternal reflective functioning and improved parent–child attachment (Slade et al., Reference Slade, Holland and Ordway2020).

The Positive Parenting Program (Triple-P; Sanders et al., Reference Sanders, Markie-Dadds, Tully and Bor2000) was primarily developed to prevent or reduce child behavior problems in children under the age of 12. Triple-P offers a number of intervention variations depending on the child’s age and specific target symptoms. For emotion-related purposes, Triple-P Enhanced was designed to address both parent and child behavior, with a focus on helping parents manage their own and their child’s emotions and distress. Outcomes associated with Triple-P Enhanced include fewer reported disruptive child behaviors, and improved emotion regulation in parents (Sanders et al., Reference Sanders, Bor and Morawska2007).

The Reflective Parenting Program (RPP; Grienenberger et al., Reference Grienenberger, Denham, Reynolds, Luyten, Mayes, Fonagy, Target and Blatt2015) was designed for parents of children ranging from infancy to preadolescence, and focuses on training parents to separate their child’s emotions from their own. RPP teaches parents how to reflect the child’s emotions back through coaching and modeling as a means for developing the child’s emotion regulation skills. In addition, parents are taught mindfulness practices with the intent of helping them monitor their emotional responses to their child and develop greater sensitivity. RPP has been found to contribute to decreases in parental depressive symptoms and stress (Grienenberger et al., Reference Grienenberger, Denham, Reynolds, Luyten, Mayes, Fonagy, Target and Blatt2015).

Tuning in to Kids (TIK; Havighurst et al., Reference Havighurst, Wilson, Harley, Kehoe, Efron and Prior2013) and Tuning in to Teens (Kehoe et al., Reference Kehoe, Havighurst and Harley2014) are group-based interventions designed with a core focus on enhancing parents’ ES capacities. These interventions are delivered over six sessions and teach parents how to regulate their own emotions so that they can be more supportive of and responsive to their child’s emotional dysregulation. In addition, parents are instructed on how to be emotion coaches for their children by increasing their awareness of their own emotions, communicating with their child or teen about their emotions, and assisting them in both regulating and recovering from emotional distress. Finally, each of these programs instructs parents in developing emotional self-care skills including a focus on proactive emotion regulation to aid parents in self-regulating during moments of high emotional intensity (Kehoe et al. Reference Kehoe, Havighurst and Harley2014). Studies have shown these programs to be associated with outcomes including improved use of emotion coaching, increased knowledge of emotions in children, and improved emotion regulation in both parents and children (Havighurst et al., Reference Havighurst, Wilson, Harley, Kehoe, Efron and Prior2013; Kehoe et al., Reference Kehoe, Havighurst and Harley2020).

Conclusions and Future Directions

In conclusion, research on ES has indicated that mothers and fathers play critical roles in shaping their children’s emotional, behavioral, and neurological outcomes during infancy and early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence and young adulthood. Across these different developmental periods, evidence has demonstrated that high levels of supportive ES efforts and low levels of negative and emotion dismissing parenting behaviors are related to more adaptive emotion regulation and fewer adjustment difficulties. More recent investigations have demonstrated parental socialization efforts, expression of emotions, and the family emotional climate to be associated with the development of brain regions tied to emotion regulation and processing. In addition, although mothers and fathers may use different approaches to emotion-related parenting practices, evidence from the literature has demonstrated that each parent affords unique ES experiences for their children, albeit more research on the specific role of paternal ES is needed. Perhaps, the different relational attributes that characterize children’s relationships with mothers and fathers may create unique socialization experiences critical for healthy emotional outcomes. Further, parental use of ES strategies and implications of ES may differ across cultures contingent on specific parental ES values and goals. Grounded theory studies have revealed some interesting culturally salient ES goals and practices. Moreover, interventions focusing on ES and regulation have produced important insights into effective programs that can be utilized with families of children at varying ages, including the importance of parental control of their own emotions during the socialization process. Collectively, the literature has demonstrated that despite the emotional, cognitive, behavioral, and neurological transformations that occur during the first two decades of life and beyond, parents consistently play critical roles in shaping the emotional well-being of their offspring. It is important to acknowledge that as children age, parents likely need to adapt their specific ES techniques to meet the unique developmental needs of their children. That is, how a parent helps a 5-year-old with negative emotions is going to be qualitatively different than how they help a 15-year-old. Thus, authoritative parenting, which is defined by high levels of responsive parenting (Morris et al., Reference Morris, Cui, Steinberg, Larzelere, Morris and Harrist2013), would provide a helpful approach to adapting ES practices during children’s development.

Future research would benefit from an exploration of the unique role that context plays in the ES process. Specifically, researchers should consider the parent–child relationship, family dynamics, culture, parent/child psychopathology and gender, and the history of moment-to-moment interactions in understanding ES more broadly. The perspective of the child/adolescent is also important, as children’s own beliefs about emotions and relationships can shape the ways in which they interpret ES efforts. Future research also would benefit from cross-disciplinary methods in the study of ES, bringing together neuroscientists, sociologists, psychologists, clinicians, educators and others and utilizing multiple methods of analysis and data points across development. Importantly, given the importance of ES and emotion regulation in children and adolescents’ social and emotional development, intervention and prevention programming designed to address these behaviors and abilities should be widely available. We argue for a public health approach to providing universal education regarding successful ES strategies and emotion regulation skills (see Morris et al., Reference Morris, Robinson, Hays-Grudo, Claussen, Hartwig and Treat2017c), supporting caregivers across socio-economic divides and meeting parents where they are: through home visiting programs; group classes at childcare centers, schools, community centers and religious facilities; and providing information in doctors’ offices, through social media campaigns, and in places where children and families regularly gather. Such efforts, in combination with increasingly nuanced research to understand the most important factors in supporting ES and emotion regulation in context, will likely yield promising results for children and families, impacting positive development and reducing psychopathology in future generations.