Mothers' emotional expressiveness and coping: Relations with preschoolers' social-emotional competence.

To investigate mothers' influence on their children's social-emotional development, mothers of 57 preschoolers gave information by interview and diary about their expression of emotions when in their children's presence. An examination of mothers'interview and diary responses revealed a coherent picture of these emotions. Moreover, results confirmed expectations that various aspects of mothers' emotions influenced their children's own expressiveness, understanding of emotions, prosocial responses to peer emotions, and overall social competence