Parenting stress has been closely studied largely in relation to implications for the parent and implications for children. Emotion regulation refers to the processes in which one interprets and experiences emotions. Little has been done examining how parenting stress and mother emotion regulation relates to dyadic interaction between mother and child. Because of the compounding nature of stress as identified in the ABCX model of family stress and resilience theory, understanding parenting stress in its entirety and how mothers experience and deal with said parenting stress is crucial to understanding family processes, as it is not possible to partition the mother and child into separate spheres, per family systems theory. Maternal parenting behaviors cannot be conceptualized in isolation of the mother-child dyad; therefore, it is important to understand maternal processes and behaviors that relate to parenting and also the dyad. The current study examined the moderating impact of maternal emotion regulation on the relation between maternal parenting stress and three facets of dyadic interaction, including conflict, cooperation, and reciprocity. Mothers and their 4-5.5-year-old children (n=116) participated in a teaching task wherein mothers instructed their child to build figures with interlocking blocks based on provided images. Six hypotheses were examined. Regression analyses revealed that neither maternal cognitive reappraisal nor maternal emotion suppression moderated the relation of total parenting stress to parent-child dyadic interaction. However, preliminary correlation analyses revealed that dyads with boys experienced higher scores of dyadic conflict. Boys in the sample were also younger than girls. Considerations for lack of significant findings are explored including the role of maternal characteristics, child characteristics, and goodness-of-fit. Future exploration is necessary to examine how parent characteristics like maternal emotion regulation and parenting stress may relate to dyadic interactions with children. / M.S. / Most of the research on parenting stress, which is the stress that parents may feel related to their roles as parents, examines how it is related to parenting behavior or directly to their children’s behavior. There is little research on how parenting stress and maternal emotion regulation, which how mothers control their emotions, relate to dyadic interactions between mothers and children. Theories of family stress suggest that stress builds over time; therefore, it is important to understand all aspects of parenting stress. When any family member experiences stress, theories suggest that their stress can affect other family members. Maternal parenting behaviors, however, cannot be viewed separately from patterns of dyadic interaction between mothers and children; it is important to understand how maternal characteristics, including parenting stress and emotion regulation, relate to patterns of dyadic mother-child interaction. The current study examined how maternal parenting stress related to three types of dyadic interaction, including conflict, cooperation, and reciprocity. It was expected that how parenting stress would relate to dyadic interaction would be different depending on how mothers reported regulating their emotions. Mothers and their 4-5.5-year-old children (n=116) participated in a building task where mothers taught children how to make figures out of interlocking blocks based on pictures provided to mothers. Findings showed that maternal emotion regulation did not increase or decrease how maternal parenting stress related to dyadic interaction between mothers and children. Dyads with boys, however, experienced higher scores of dyadic conflict, and boys in the sample were also younger than girls. Future exploration is needed to examine how parent characteristics like maternal emotion regulation and parenting stress may relate to dyadic interactions between mothers and children.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/107757 |
| Date | 01 December 2021 |
| Creators | Atanasio, Meredith |
| Contributors | Human Development and Family Science, Smith, Cynthia L., Savla, Jyoti S., Dunsmore, Julie C. |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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