Parents' responses to the emotional distress of their children: Relations with children's competence.

Abstract

Although investigators have proposed in various theories that the socialization of emotions has important implications for children's general competence, very little empirical data exist. In the present study, parents' responses to the emotional distress of their preschool children were examined in the context of more general dimensions of parenting (warmth and control), and the relation of these responses to children's competence was assessed. Data on parent-child interactions were collected for 30 families, using home observations, parent self-reports, observer ratings, and child interviews. Children's competence in preschool was assessed by teacher ratings. Effective, situationally appropriate action was the most frequently observed parental response to children's upset, and children's attributions to parents of such pragmatic responses was positively related to their competence in preschool. Parental encouragement of emotional expressiveness was also positively associated with child competence. Variables assessing positive responses to upset, although related to warmth (as expected), also contributed independently to children's competence. This research was designed to investigate parents' responses to emotional distress in young children (i.e., to their expressed anger, fear, and sadness) and to assess the relation of these responses to children's competence outside the home. Parental responses to distress were conceptualized as lying along a dimension of suppression to encouragement of active emotional expression. These responses were assessed in the context of parental warmth and control because children's competence is affected by these aspects of parenting (Baumrind, 1971; Maccoby & Martin, 1983; Martin, 1975) and because the effects of parents' responses to emotional distress may be moderated by parental warmth and control. In everyday language, competence refers to the ability to meet the demands of a given situation (Webster & McKechnie, 1978). There is substantial agreement in the literature that for children these abilities are generally manifested as goal-oriented, planful behavior (Baumrind, 1971; Block & Block, 1980) and include in social situations the skills to initiate and sustain nondisruptive social interactions (Ainsworth & Bell, 1974; Baumrind, 1971; Lamb, Easterbrooks, & Holden, 1980; Waters, Wippman, & Sroufe, 1979). Whereas the distinction between social activities and purely task-oriented activities is clear in theory,