Longitudinal associations between parent-child interactions and children’s socioemotional functioning in ethnically diverse families

Abstract

Theoretical and empirical evidence identify parenting behaviors as one of the most robust predictors of children’s socioemotional development. However, this body of evidence is primarily based on White middle-class mothers and children. As such, it remains unclear whether these developmental processes are generalizable to ethnic minority children who are reared in different sociocultural contexts. The present dissertation consists of three interrelated studies that examined longitudinal associations between parent-child interactions (parents’ emotion socialization; responsive parenting; parent-child dyadic synchrony) and children’s socioemotional functioning (socioemotional competence; executive function; self-regulation) in ethnically diverse mothers, fathers, and their young children. I also examined children’s regulatory skills and parent-child dyadic synchrony as mediators and child emotionality as a moderator of these associations. Empirical Study 1 examined how mothers’ and fathers’ emotion socialization behaviors (ESB) at 18 and 24 months were associated with toddlers’ social competence at 24 and 30 months. Fathers’ non-supportive ESBs to negative emotions at 18 months were positively associated with social competence at 30 months. There was a negative association between mothers’ non-supportive ESBs to negative emotions at 24 months and social competence at 30 months only for toddlers with high negative emotionality. A positive association between fathers’ emotion coaching of negative emotions at 18 months and 30-month social competence emerged only when mothers did not provide any emotion coaching. Empirical Study 2 examined longitudinal associations between mothers’ and fathers’ responsive parenting at 9 months and children’s socioemotional functioning (executive function and socioemotional competence) at age 3. This study also tested children’s effortful control at 24 months as a mediator and emotionality as a moderator of these associations. Only mothers’ responsive parenting at 9 months was associated with greater socioemotional competence at age 3. There was no support for effortful control and emotionality as a mediator and moderator, respectively, of associations between maternal or paternal responsive parenting and socioemotional functioning. Empirical Study 3 examined direct associations between mother- and father-child synchrony at 18 months and toddlers’ self-regulation at 24 months and indirect associations through parent-child synchrony at 24 months. I also examined child emotionality as a moderator of direct associations and explored whether participation in a parenting intervention had impacts on synchrony and self-regulation. Father-child synchrony at 24 months mediated associations between earlier synchrony and self-regulation. Child emotionality did not moderate associations between synchrony and self-regulation. Finally, mothers and fathers in the treatment conditions exhibited greater synchrony with their children at 24 months than parents in the control group. Collectively, these findings indicate the unique ways that ethnically diverse mothers and fathers contribute to their children’s socioemotional development. These studies highlight the need for further research examining mechanisms (mediators and moderators) as additional sources of within-group variability in socioemotional functioning. Doing so will help diversify the science of normative socioemotional development and can inform program efforts to best support ethnic minority children in developing strong socioemotional skills.