Investigating correlates of children's emotional well‐being: Parenting stress and child temperament

Abstract

Children's emotional well‐being may emerge as a result of the dynamic interplay between individual factors, such as temperament and environmental factors, such as parenting stress. The current study aimed to investigate the contributions of child temperament and parenting stress to children's emotional well‐being. This study also examined the moderating role of parenting stress on the association between child temperament and children's emotional well‐being. Participants were mothers of 219 Turkish preschool children (110 girls) aged 36 months to 76 months (M = 56.95 months, SD = 11.73 months). Mothers reported on children's emotional well‐being (emotion regulation, emotion dysregulation, child aggression and child anxiety), temperament (persistence and reactivity) and parenting stress. Persistence was negatively associated with emotion dysregulation and child aggression, while reactivity was negatively associated with emotion regulation and positively associated with emotion dysregulation, aggression and anxiety. Parenting stress was negatively associated with emotion regulation and positively associated with emotion dysregulation, aggression and anxiety. Simple slope analyses revealed that high persistence coupled with low parenting stress was associated with higher emotion regulation, while low persistence paired with high parenting stress was linked to higher child aggression. The findings underline the significance of child temperament and parenting stress for children's emotional well‐being.Highlights Temperamental persistence is negatively associated with emotion dysregulation and aggression. Temperamental reactivity is negatively associated with emotion regulation and positively associated with emotion dysregulation, aggression and anxiety. Parenting stress was negatively associated with emotion regulation and positively associated with emotion dysregulation, aggression and anxiety in children.