Emotion regulation (ER) in parenting is ER undertaken in one’s role as a parent. More specifically, it refers to the automatic or strategic process of regulating either one’s own or one’s child’s emotion with the goal of maintaining one’s well-being as a parent and/or fostering one’s child’s well-being or development (Mikolajczak & Roskam, Reference Mikolajczak, Roskam, Gross and Fordin press). Thus, as illustrated in Table 6.1, the target of ER in parenting can be the parent’s emotion (intrinsic ER, also labeled self-focused ER) or the child’s emotion (extrinsic ER, also labeled other-focused ER), and the goal of ER can be self-serving (i.e. with an eye to benefits for the parent) and/or child-serving (i.e. with an eye to benefits for the child).

Note that, as pointed out earlier by Petrova and Gross (see Chapter 2), self-serving and child-serving regulatory goals can be co-activated on many occasions. Consider for instance the bottom left corner of Table 6.1: if the daughter is brilliant and will most likely pass her exam, the father may be driven in his actions exclusively by the goal of changing his daughter’s emotion and making her feel more emotionally comfortable. But if his daughter has not done so well in school so far and she does even less well when she is stressed, the father may act with the goal of both making her feel more emotionally comfortable and increasing her chances of passing, and also of reducing his own stress about the possibility that she may fail.

ER in parenting is highly frequent and varied. As the examples in Table 6.1 suggest, parents do not downregulate only negative emotions. They also downregulate positive emotions or upregulate both negative and positive emotions. Thus, parental ER encompasses the downregulation of negative emotions (e.g. self-focused: downregulating one’s anxiety at a teenager’s first evening out with friends; child-focused: downregulating the child’s sadness at a friend’s move), the upregulation of negative emotions (e.g. self-focused: up-regulating one’s facial manifestations of disappointment at a young child’s misbehavior; child-focused: upregulating a teenager’s stress to prompt him or her to study), the downregulation of positive emotions (e.g. self-focused: hiding one’s amusement at a teenager’s new outfit; child-focused: reducing a young child’s interest in a product that is environmentally harmful), and the upregulation of positive emotions (e.g. self-focused: increasing displays of gratitude when teenager is helping; child-focused: increasing the child’s pride at a hard-won success).

6.1 Protective Role of Parents’ Self-Focused (Intrinsic) Emotion Regulation vis-à-vis Parenting Stress and Burnout

As the examples provided in the preceding section suggest, being able to efficiently regulate one’s own emotion as a parent confers many benefits. Other chapters in this volume emphasize several of these (see Chapters 5 and 7). Here, we focus specifically on the benefits regarding parenting stress and parental burnout.

The vast majority of studies show that efficient ER strategies strongly reduce parenting stress and, accordingly, the risk for parental burnout. For instance, Babore et al. (Reference Babore, Bramanti, Lombardi, Stuppia, Trumello, Antonucci and Cavallo2019) showed that the propensity to use cognitive reappraisal was negatively linked to parenting stress. In the same vein, Iswinarti et al. (Reference Iswinarti, Jadmiko and Hasanati2020) showed that the use of generally “adaptive” emotion regulation strategies (measured via the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire [CERQ; Garnefski et al., Reference Garnefski, Kraaij and Spinhoven2002]) was also related to lower scores for parenting stress. Unsurprisingly given these results, Vertsberger et al. (Reference Vertsberger, Roskam, Talmon, Van Bakel, Hall, Mikolajczak and Gross2022) found that higher use of cognitive reappraisal was related to lower levels of parental burnout.

Although most studies are based on self-reported correlational designs, the relationship seems real and causal: real, because better ER not only predicts lower self-reported levels of stress but also some biological indicators of lower stress such as higher heart rate variability (Costa et al., Reference Costa, Steffgen and Ferring2017; but see Doan et al., Reference Doan, Venkatesh, Predroza, Tarullo and Meyer2020 for null results on hair cortisol); and causal, because when ER is improved via a short psychological intervention (consisting for instance of teaching reappraisal skills), subjective parenting stress decreases (Preuss et al., Reference Preuss, Capito, van Eickels, Zemp and Kolar2021).

That a parent’s ER predicts the parent’s level of stress is not surprising given that studies have previously shown that both ER capacity and ER self-efficacy buffer the impact of parenting stressors on parents’ affective response (Deater-Deckard et al., Reference Deater-Deckard, Li and Bell2016). Beyond this effect, the parent’s ER may also influence parenting stress indirectly. Although proper mediation studies are missing, likely mediators are represented in Figure 6.1.

Figure 6.1

Hypothetical mediators of the relationship between parent’s self-focused (i.e. intrinsic) emotion regulation (ER) and parenting stress

One candidate is parenting behavior. Poor parental ER self-efficacy is associated with poorer parenting practices (e.g. authoritarian parenting; Hughes & Gullone, Reference Hughes and Gullone2010; Shaw & Starr, Reference Shaw and Starr2019) and these have been associated with increased parenting stress (Hutchison et al., Reference Hutchison, Feder, Abar and Winsler2016). A second candidate is the child’s ER. Poor parental ER self-efficacy is associated with poor child’s ER and emotional lability (Bariola et al., Reference Bariola, Hughes and Gullone2012; Rogers et al., Reference Rogers, Halberstadt, Castro, MacCormack and Garrett-Peters2016; Tan & Smith, Reference Tan and Smith2019), and poor child’s ER and lability are related to higher parenting stress (Williford et al., Reference Williford, Calkins and Keane2007). A third candidate is the child’s behavior. Poorer parental ER self-efficacy is related to more externalizing behavior problems in the child (Crespo et al., Reference Crespo, Trentacosta, Aikins and Wargo-Aikins2017) and these usually predict higher parenting stress (Stone et al., Reference Stone, Mares, Otten, Engels and Janssens2016; Williford et al., Reference Williford, Calkins and Keane2007). Note that, with the notable exception of Deater-Deckard et al. (Reference Deater-Deckard, Li and Bell2016), most studies have measured parental ER using self-reported measures of parents’ perceptions of their own ability (hence our label “ER self-efficacy” because self-reports capture ER self-efficacy rather than ER capacity). Future mediation studies would certainly benefit from going beyond self-reports and using indicators of both ER self-efficacy and ER capacity.

6.2 Protective Role of Parents’ Child-Focused (Extrinsic) Emotion Regulation vis-à-vis Parenting Stress and Burnout

The examples provided in the first section suggest that it is useful not only to be able to regulate one’s own emotions as a parent but also to be able to regulate one’s children’s emotions (i.e. extrinsic ER). It seems quite intuitive to think that parents who are able to regulate their children’s emotion may be less overwhelmed by the latter’s emotions and may also have children with better adjustment, both of which would contribute to lowering their level of parenting stress. Several chapters in this volume emphasize the importance of parents’ extrinsic ER for their children’s adjustment (see Chapters 7, 8, and 9). Here, we examine specifically the advantages of parents’ extrinsic ER vis-à-vis parenting stress and parental burnout.

Unfortunately, and somewhat surprisingly, the first thing that our literature review revealed is that this subject has not yet been researched. The closest proxy for measuring parents’ extrinsic ER is the Coping with Children’s Negative Emotions Scale (CCNES; Fabes et al., Reference Fabes, Eisenberg and Bernzweig1990; Fabes et al., Reference Fabes, Poulin, Eisenberg, Madden-Derdich and Fabes2002) and its version for toddlers, the Coping with Toddlers’ Negative Emotions (CTNES; Spinrad et al., Reference Spinrad, Eisenberg, Kupfer, Gaertner and Michalik2004). To date, neither the CCNES nor the CTNES has been studied in relation to parenting stress or burnout.

Pending such research, we turned to slightly broader proxies of parents’ extrinsic ER, namely the concepts of parental emotion socialization practices (Eisenberg, Reference Eisenberg2020; Eisenberg et al., Reference Eisenberg, Cumberland and Spinrad1998) and parental meta-emotion philosophy (PMEP; Gottman et al., Reference Gottman, Katz and Hooven1996). These concepts capture how parents perceive children’s emotions and react to them. “Supportive socialization practices” in Eisenberg’s terms and “emotion coaching“ in Gottman’s terms refer to parents who are aware of their children’s emotions, are supportive of emotional expression, and use emotion episodes as opportunities for intimacy and for teaching their children ways to understand and regulate their emotions. In contrast, “unsupportive socialization practices” in Eisenberg’s terms and “dismissing emotions” in Gottman’s terms refer to parents who feel threatened by children’s emotions and who are likely to invalidate or punish emotional expression, attempt to reduce the emotion quickly, and teach their child that emotions are undesirable or unimportant (Johnson et al., Reference Johnson, Hawes, Eisenberg, Kohlhoff and Dudeney2017).

We could therefore consider supportive/coaching practices as a proxy for “adaptive” parental extrinsic ER and unsupportive/dismissing practices as a proxy for “maladaptive” parental extrinsic ER, and expect that parents who display the former may be less stressed than parents who display the latter. Unfortunately, there is a lack of research examining the impact of either parental emotion socialization practices or PMEP on parenting stress. That said, two intervention studies suggest that better parental extrinsic ER may possibly decrease parenting stress.

The first is a pilot study conducted by Cortell (Reference Cortell2009). This examined the impact of an intervention aimed at increasing parents’ emotion coaching of their adolescents. The results showed that parents who participated in the intervention displayed decreased use of emotion dismissing parenting behaviors and decreased parenting stress. Children of participating parents showed less anxiety and depression and exhibited fewer aggressive behaviors by the end of the intervention. Unfortunately, there was no control group. However, a dose-response effect was present: parents who attended more sessions had greater increases in emotion coaching behaviors, and increased emotion coaching was linked with increased parental positive emotions, as well as a reduction of aggressive behavior by children and parenting stress.

The second is a randomized controlled trial by Havighurst and colleagues (Reference Havighurst, Kehoe, Harley, Radovini and Thomas2022). This examined the effect of an emotion socialization parenting program (Tuning in to Toddlers) on parenting, children’s behavior, and the stress hormone cortisol. Compared to the control group, the intervention led to moderate increases in parents’ emotion coaching behaviors and a moderate decrease in emotion dismissing behaviors. There was only a small effect of the intervention on parents’ own emotion regulation, which can be interpreted as the intervention having a specific impact on parents’ extrinsic ER. There was also a small effect of the intervention on children’s emotional and social competence and a small-to-moderate effect of the intervention on parents’ cortisol level (Cohen’s d = .36, not reaching significance due to insufficient statistical power).

Taken together, these results may be interpreted as providing preliminary support for the idea that a parent who is able to regulate his/her children’s emotion may have children with better emotional/social adjustment, which in turn reduces the parent’s stress. There are, however, other possible interpretations of the findings: for example, participating parents may have been less stressed simply because the intervention made them feel more competent as parents or more supported by the group. Future studies are thus urgently needed to determine whether or not better parental extrinsic ER leads to lower parenting stress. This is all the more important given that such effects appear highly likely.

Although proper mediation studies are needed, likely mediators are represented in Figure 6.2. One candidate is the child’s ER. Poor socialization of emotion is associated with poor child’s ER (Price & Kiel, Reference Price and Kiel2022; Shaffer et al., Reference Shaffer, Suveg, Thomassin and Bradbury2012; Wang et al., Reference Wang, Liang, Zhou and Zou2019; but see England-Mason & Gonzalez, Reference England-Mason and Gonzalez2020 and Rogers et al., Reference Rogers, Halberstadt, Castro, MacCormack and Garrett-Peters2016, for mixed results) and poor child’s ER is related to higher parenting stress (Williford et al., Reference Williford, Calkins and Keane2007). Another candidate is the child’s behavior. Poor socialization of emotion is related to more externalizing behavior problems in the child (for a meta-analysis, see Johnson et al., Reference Johnson, Hawes, Eisenberg, Kohlhoff and Dudeney2017) and these usually predict higher parenting stress (Stone et al., Reference Stone, Mares, Otten, Engels and Janssens2016; Williford et al., Reference Williford, Calkins and Keane2007).

Figure 6.2

Hypothetical pathways leading from parent’s child-focused (i.e. extrinsic) emotion regulation (ER) to parenting stress

Note that feedback loops are likely because, as suggested by Havighurst and Kehoe (Reference Havighurst, Kehoe, Deater-Deckard and Panneton2017), when parents are emotionally overwhelmed by stress, their ability to engage in perspective taking and extrinsic ER is compromised due to limited access to executive functions (Suchy, Reference Suchy2011). Moreover, the relationship between ER and mediators could also run in the opposite direction: the child’s ER and the child’s behavior could influence the parent’s capacity to engage in extrinsic ER, and this may in turn increase the parent’s own level of stress.

6.3 Might Too Much Parental Emotion Regulation Increase Parenting Stress and Burnout?

The preceding sections support the view that intrinsic and extrinsic parental ER may have positive outcomes for the parent. These results may have contributed to an increase in the pressures on parents to practice ER in parenting and the constant efforts that today’s parents make to regulate their emotions in the presence of their children (Lin et al., Reference Lin, Hansotte, Szczygieł, Meeussen, Roskam and Mikolajczak2021). These pressures and efforts are based on the idea that the effects are linear: parents as well as parenting experts have assumed that the more ER, the better. Although this assumption may appear sensible at first glance, recent evidence suggests that it may not always be valid.

Recent research shows that when parents make too much effort to regulate their emotions, ironically, their risk of parental burnout increases (Lin et al., Reference Lin, Hansotte, Szczygieł, Meeussen, Roskam and Mikolajczak2021). This is not so surprising, as ER can be costly (Milyavsky et al., Reference Milyavsky, Webber, Fernandez, Kruglanski, Goldenberg, Suri and Gross2019; Sheppes et al., Reference Sheppes, Catran and Meiran2009; Sheppes & Meiran, Reference Sheppes and Meiran2008), and the higher the discrepancy between the actual and desired affective state, the higher the negative affect and the higher the cost of ER (for a review, see Tamir, Reference Tamir2021).

In addition to being costly to parents, there are at least two reasons to suspect that too much intrinsic and extrinsic parental ER may also backfire on children (Mikolajczak & Roskam, Reference Mikolajczak, Roskam, Gross and Fordin press). First, parents who are constantly regulating their own emotions may prevent children from being confronted with their parents’ negative emotions, which would reduce their opportunities to learn to cope with others’ emotions in a safe context. Second, parents who are continuously regulating their children’s emotions to avoid them being distressed may reduce their children’s opportunities to learn to manage their own negative emotions and hence slow down or even prevent the acquisition of ER skills, leaving children dependent on others to regulate their emotions. Thus, it is possible that too much intrinsic and extrinsic parental ER may actually help create “cotton wool children” (Bristow, Reference Bristow, Lee, Bristow, Faircloth and Macvarish2014), that is, overprotected kids who become fragile through lack of opportunity to face adversity and develop strength and resilience.

6.4 Directions for Future Research

In spite of the frequency of ER in parenting, the ER field has long overlooked the parenting domain (for a recent review, see Mikolajczak & Roskam, Reference Mikolajczak, Roskam, Gross and Fordin press). The field remains largely unexplored, and this chapter highlights three important research directions.

The first is focused on content: more research is needed on the impact of intrinsic and extrinsic parental ER on parenting stress and burnout. If future research confirms the preliminary findings reviewed in this chapter, studies will be needed to uncover the mediators of these relationships. We have proposed several possible mediators here, and research that confirms or refutes their mediating status is needed.

The second is methodological: future studies should use more objective measures of ER and systematically distinguish the effects of intrinsic versus extrinsic parental ER on parenting stress. They should also go beyond cross-sectional designs. Longitudinal cross-lagged designs are necessary not only to inform causation (e.g. does parents’ ER influence parenting stress?) but also to disentangle the direction of effects (e.g. parenting stress may reciprocally influence parents’ ER). While such cross-lagged longitudinal studies are awaited, researchers should probably be more cautious in their interpretation of correlational results. So far, findings linking ER to another variable are almost systematically interpreted in the direction parent to child. In other words, we infer that it is the parent’s ER that influences the child’s ER or behavior. However, the child’s ER and behavior may facilitate or, conversely, complicate the efficiency of parents’ extrinsic ER. The direction of causation could therefore be different from what we have so far assumed.

The third direction is related to what we mentioned at the end of this chapter: future studies would certainly benefit from going beyond linear conceptions (where more ER is always better) and consider also curvilinear hypotheses (where too much parental ER may actually have adverse consequences). We hope that this chapter will encourage these studies and stimulate research at the intersection of ER and parenting more broadly.