Parental Emotion Socialization Predicts Early Adolescents’ Emotion Regulation: A Longitudinal and Multimethod Examination in Trauma-Exposed Families

Bolstering emerging adolescents’ emotion regulation may help promote resilience to emotional disorders. This may be especially critical among offspring of parents who have experienced trauma, who are at increased risk of mental health problems. This study examines the influence of parental emotion socialization on emerging adolescents’ behavioral and physiological regulation. Thirty-two parents who experienced interpersonal trauma and their 9- to 12-year-old emerging adolescents (M_ageT1 = 10.8 years; M_ageT2 = 11.5 years) completed reports of parental emotion socialization behaviors at baseline, and reports of youth’s emotion coping, emotionally dysregulated behaviors, and affective symptoms at follow-up. Youth’s RSA reactivity was also assessed. Parents’ unsupportive responses predicted youth’s behavioral dysregulation and less adaptive physiological regulation, and parents’ supportive responses predicted youth’s coping behaviors. Youth’s behavioral and physiological regulation was concurrently associated with their affective symptoms. These findings suggest that parental emotion socialization plays a critical role in emerging adolescents’ physiological and behavioral regulation.