(PS8-B40) It Takes Two to Tango: Association Between Children’s Emotion Regulation and Parental Sensitivity

Emotion regulation (ER) is a transdiagnostic construct underlying most forms of psychopathology, from internalizing to externalizing disorders. Developing appropriate ER can facilitate healthy and adaptive emotional and psychosocial functioning (Bridges et al., 2004). Parents help or hinder young children’s development of ER through their parenting practices, including sensitivity (Speidel et al., 2020). Interventions for childhood mental health problems target parental sensitivity as one way to improve children’s ER, but parents often struggle to respond sensitively. Understanding factors that contribute to insensitive parenting is important for improving the effectiveness of mental health treatment of children. Although the parent-child relationship is widely understood to be transactional, relatively little research has examined the extent to which children’s individual characteristics shape parental sensitivity. Thus, this study aimed to understand the bidirectional effects of child ER and parental sensitivity. A sample of low-income caregiver-child dyads (N = 151) were recruited at time point 1 (T1; M_age = 4.16 years) and were followed up with 6 months later (T2). The Emotion Regulation Checklist (ERC; Shields & Cicchetti, 1995) was completed by parents and teachers at T1 and T2; ERC Emotion Regulation (ER) and Lability/Negativity (L/N) subscales were calculated separately. Multiple imputation was used to address missing data for T1 teacher report ERC (52.9% missing) and T2 teacher and parent report ERC (55.4% and 24% missing). Semi-structured p</span>arent-child play was observed and coded for parental sensitivity at T1 and T2. Results showed positive correlations between T1 and T2 child ER and T2 parental sensitivity (r=.206, p=.003; r=.299, p< .001). T2 L/N was negatively correlated with T2 parental sensitivity (r=-.158, p=.025).  Results of linear regression found that T2 ER predicted T2 sensitivity (β=.933, p=.004), but the effect of T1 ER on T2 sensitivity was not significant after accounting for T2 ER. T1 parental sensitivity did not predict ERC at T1 or T2. These results indicate that children’s problems with ER elicit less sensitive parenting over time, and that children’s present ER is more relevant to parental sensitivity than children’s past ER. Teacher-reported ERC was not related to parental sensitivity, which may indicate that children regulate their emotions differently at school than they do at home. Finally, T1 sensitivity did not predict T2 ERC which suggests that this is less of a transactional relationship but more so that children are influencing how sensitive parents are over time. Therapists working with parents and their young children should keep in mind how difficult it can be for parents to increase their sensitivity when their children are emotionally dysregulated. Bringing this phenomenon to parent’s attention can be validating for parents and help them respond sensitively when attending to their dysregulated child.