Moderating effects of autistic traits on the relationship between parenting and child emotion regulation

Emotion regulation in early childhood is crucial for social-emotional competence. While parenting plays a role in developing these skills, the bidirectional relationships between parenting behavior and emotion regulation over time, particularly involving fathers and neurodivergent children, remain underexplored. This study examined parent-driven and child-driven effects between parenting (warmth, laxness, and overreactivity) and child emotion regulation across four time points in 143 children (52.4 % female) from age 3 to 6, with child gender and family income as covariates. Using four-wave random intercept cross-lagged panel models (RI-CLPM), we conducted separate analyses for mothers and fathers. Initial findings indicated that maternal warmth at age 3 predicted better emotion regulation at age 4, while paternal overreactivity at age 5 predicted worse emotion regulation at age 6. In moderated models, both parent-driven and child-driven effects emerged, varying by children's autistic traits. Among children with higher autistic traits, maternal warmth at age 3 and maternal laxness at age 4 strongly predicted different patterns of emotion regulation. Among children with lower autistic traits, emotion regulation at age 3 predicted higher maternal warmth at age 4. These findings highlight the significance of positive parenting in promoting emotion regulation, especially for children with higher autistic traits. In turn, they also emphasize the role of strong emotion regulation in encouraging positive parenting, particularly for children with lower autistic traits. These findings suggest that interventions should aim to enhance both parenting strategies and children's emotion regulation skills.