Parent dysregulation and child negativity in relation to parent responses to child negative emotions

Abstract Objective This study examined the effects of mothers' and fathers' emotional dysregulation and their responses to their children's distress, as well as the moderating role of child negative reactivity. Background Parents with better emotion regulation strategies tend to provide more supportive and less nonsupportive responses to their children's distress. Child temperamental negative reactivity may create emotionally challenging parenting situations and thus may moderate this relation. However, dyadic effects are less clear; family systems theory suggests parents' dysregulation may crossover to degrade their partners' responses, or parents may compensate for their partners' dysregulation with more constructive responses. Method Parents from 119 families with a 3‐ to 5‐year‐old child (50.4% boys) reported on their emotional dysregulation, responses to child negative emotions, and child negative affectivity. Path models tested actor and partner main effects and interaction effects. Results There were two partner main effects, such that when fathers were more dysregulated, mothers reported providing more supportive and fewer nonsupportive responses to their children. Additionally, two interaction effects were found. Maternal dysregulation was related to increased maternal nonsupport only when child negative affectivity was low. Maternal dysregulation was also related to greater maternal support only when child negative affectivity was high. Conclusion Our findings demonstrate the importance of parent gender roles and compensatory processes. Implications These results provide enhanced understanding of coparenting dynamics and the combined impact of mother, father, and child negativity, which can be used by practitioners.