The Role of Parental Emotional Regulation in Parenting Style - A Preliminary Study
Abstract
This study investigated if parental emotional regulation could be one of the contributing factors to parenting style, beside personality and other demographic factors. It was hypothesised that maladaptive parental emotional regulation would result in authoritarian parenting style, while adaptive parental emotional regulation would lead to authoritative parenting style. Two mothers of two different families, with children of age under 7, were interviewed face-to-face following a set of semi-structured questions. The Parenting Style Questionnaire and the Emotional Expressivity Questionnaire were used to further assess their parenting practices and emotion regulational behaviours respectively. Results showed supporting findings to the hypothesis that one 's parenting style was highly associated with the emotional state and the way of emotional regulation at the point of interaction with the child. Further massive scale of study on the correlation between parental emotional regulation and parenting style was suggested for practical implications.
Introduction
Since the conceptualization of parenting style and the classical categorization of authoritarian, authoritative and permissive parenting by Diana Baumrind in 1966, there have been numerous studies regarding the downward effect of parenting style on children 's various aspects of development, including personality, socialization, emotional well-being. It is commonly believed that positive parenting is advantageous to the child 's whole person development and can enhance children 's social skills and emotional well-being (Eisenberg et al., 2003). Needless to say, children 's emotional regulation strategies and emotional expressiveness are also influenced by parental behaviours (Roque & Veríssimo, 2011).
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