Parental childhood adversity and emotional functioning: Associations with child's emotion regulation

Objective

We examined the unique associations of different childhood stressors (economic hardship, unpredictability, low parental sensitivity, and adverse childhood experiences) with parents' emotion regulation and mentalizing, and whether parental difficulties in these domains translate into emotion regulation difficulties in their children.

Background

Maladjustment caused by early exposure to adversity may transfer to future generations by undermining the parenting quality of the exposed individuals.

Method

A sample of 562 parents to 3- to 6-year-old children completed an online questionnaire.

Results

Childhood experiences of early-life unpredictability and insensitive parental care were uniquely associated with parental emotion regulation and mentalizing difficulties. Examining the mediated paths linking parents' exposure to specific childhood stressors with their children's emotion regulation difficulties indicated that parental experiences of early-life unpredictability and insensitive parental care are indirectly associated with greater emotion regulation difficulties in their children, through greater parental emotion regulation difficulties and prementalizing modes.

Conclusions

This study points to the unique role of specific childhood stressors—namely, unpredictability and insensitive parenting—in the intergenerational transmission of emotion regulation problems.

Implications

The findings have important implications for intervention programs aimed at working with young children and their parents to mitigate the intergenerational transmission of adversity to the next generations.