Parent–adolescent communication about adolescent emotional distress and its bidirectional links with adolescent emotion regulation: Considering both parent and adolescent gender

Effective emotion regulation is critical for adolescents' psychological well-being, yet how parent-adolescent communication patterns predict adolescent emotion regulation-and vice versa-remains underexplored, particularly in Chinese culture where parenting roles are gendered. The present study examined bidirectional associations between communication patterns of adolescents' emotional distress in parents and adolescents and their emotion regulation difficulties in a sample of late adolescents from China (n = 954, 47.1% male, M_age = 15.25 years, SD = 0.54). Adolescents reported their communication patterns with both mothers and fathers and their own emotion regulation difficulties at two time points (over 8 months). Results showed that female adolescents reported higher difficulties than males. Both male and female adolescents reported engaging in more active and reactive emotion sharing with mothers than with fathers, but perceived a greater lack of solicitation from fathers than from mothers. Contrary to the bidirectional hypothesis, only active and reactive emotion sharing negatively predicted adolescents' emotion regulation difficulties longitudinally, and this effect was observed only in father-son dyads. Additionally, both active and reactive emotion sharing with fathers and mothers predicted decreased adolescents' unresponsiveness, and active and reactive emotion sharing with fathers predicted fathers' reduced lack of solicitation over time, both of which suggested a dynamic process of the parent-adolescent emotional interaction. In general, these findings underscore the importance of considering parent and adolescent gender in understanding family emotion communication and adolescents' emotion regulation. Fathers' unique role in predicting male adolescents' emotional development warrants focused attention.