(PS3-D97) The Influence of Parental Hostility on Internalizing Problems in Middle Childhood: The Indirect Effect of Emotion Dysregulation

Introduction: Parental hostility (i.e., harshness, irritability, intrusive parenting, and ineffective discipline) has previously been associated with a wide range of negative mental health outcomes among children and adolescents, including internalizing problems (Parent & Forehand, 2017). Parenting behaviors also play a vital role in helping children develop healthy emotion regulation skills (Eisenberg et al., 2003), and high levels of hostility may undermine youth’s ability to learn effective strategies for managing their own negative emotions, such as anger and sadness (Saritas et al., 2013). Moreover, children who repeatedly fail to regulate their emotions in accordance with the broader social context are at greater risk for developing internalizing problems (Folk et al., 2014). The purpose of the current study was to investigate the indirect effect of emotion dysregulation on the links from parental hostility to internalizing problems (i.e., anxiety and depressive symptoms) over a 6-month period during middle childhood.

Method: The sample consisted of 281 students (52% boys) in grades 3-5 recruited from two elementary schools in the West South-Central region of the United States. Children ranged from 7-12 years of age (M = 9.27 years, SD = 0.94). Fifty-two percent of the sample identified as Hispanic/Latino. Children completed self-report measures of parental hostility, emotion dysregulation, and anxiety and depressive symptoms during the Fall 2021 (T1) and Spring 2022 (T2) semesters.

Results: Results indicated that T1 parental hostility significantly predicted T2 symptoms of anxiety (b = .21, p = .002) and depression (b = .19, p = .003). When T1 emotion dysregulation was added to the model, it significantly predicted T2 depressive symptoms (b = .15, p = .02), but not T2 anxiety symptoms (b = .12, p = .08). T1 parental hostility was also positively associated with T1 emotion dysregulation (b = .41, p < .001). Further, there was a significant indirect effect of T1 parental hostility to T2 depressive symptoms through T1 emotion dysregulation (b = .06, b = .08, SE = .04, 95% CI [.01, .17]); the indirect effect was not significant for T2 anxiety symptoms.

Discussion: Consistent with previous research, it appears that parental hostility has a significant influence on children’s internalizing problems over time. Findings from the current study also suggest that emotion dysregulation may partially account for the prospective link from parental hostility to depressive symptoms. Thus, there may be multiple targets—parenting behaviors and youth’s emotion regulation abilities—for preventive interventions designed to reduce risk for internalizing problems during childhood.