Parents' Maltreatment Histories, Dimensions of Emotion Regulation, and Connections to Offspring Self-Regulation: A Sex-Specific Transmission Pathway

Childhood abuse and neglect and profiles of adult emotion dynamics

Childhood maltreatment (CM) is experienced by ∼40% of all children at major personal and societal costs. The divergent associations between emotional, physical, and sexual abuse or neglect in childhood and differences in adult emotional functioning and regulation were examined in terms of daily emotion intensity, variability, instability, inertia, and diversity, reported over 30 days by 290 Dutch aged 19-73. Participants described their abuse/neglect experiences retrospectively using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ). Dissecting CM effects on adult emotion dynamics may inform theories on the ontogenesis and functioning of emotions, on effects of abuse and neglect, to better understand (dys)functional emotional development, and to prevent their adverse sequelae. Structural equation models (SEM) showed that most types of CM were associated with specific patterns of emotion dynamics, and only emotional abuse had no unique effects on the emotional dynamic indices. Emotional neglect was associated with most measures of emotion dynamics (i.e., less intense, variable, unstable, and diverse emotions). Sexual abuse associated with increases and physical neglect decreases in negative affect variability and instability. Physical abuse was associated with inertia but with a small effect size. Social contact frequency did not mediate much of the relationship between CM types and emotion dynamics.

The Relationship between Paternal Alexithymia and Children's Internalizing and Externalizing Behavioral Problems during Early Childhood

The literature has long recognized that parental emotional competence, that is, the ability to express, understand, and regulate emotions, plays a key role in children's development from early childhood. Nevertheless, the effect of parental alexithymia, which can be understood as a deficit in emotional competence, has not been thoroughly studied. In particular, the association between paternal alexithymia and behavioral problems in young children is still a neglected area of research. This study aims to investigate the association between paternal alexithymia and children's internalizing and externalizing problems during the first three years of life, including whether overreactive parenting practices mediate the effect of alexithymia on children's behavioral problems. A sample of 203 fathers of children aged 18-36 months were administered the TAS-20, the Overreactivity subscale of the Parenting Scale, and the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL)/1½-5. The data indicate that paternal alexithymia is a predictor of children's internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems and that paternal overreactivity mediates the effect of alexithymia. These results highlight the importance of preventing parental alexithymia and involving fathers in parenting support programs aimed at ensuring children's mental health and adjustment.

Predicting children's differential trajectories of emotion dysregulation: A study on the intergenerational transmission of child and caregiver maltreatment

BACKGROUND

Child maltreatment and caregiver history of abuse is negatively associated with the development of emotion regulation, and maltreatment in early childhood may be particularly disruptive.

OBJECTIVE

We examined patterns of emotion dysregulation and the contribution of caregiver victimization and early maltreatment history on the development of distinct emotion dysregulation trajectories.

PARTICIPANTS

The current study sample (n = 1354) came from the Longitudinal Studies of Child Abuse and Neglect (LONGSCAN), a longitudinal study of the antecedents and consequences of child maltreatment. Children had a varied risk of maltreatment from high risk but not referred to child protective services to children who were removed from parental care.

METHOD

We employed a growth mixture modeling approach to model differential trajectories of children's emotion dysregulation from age four to age ten and assessed whether children's experiences of maltreatment prior to age four and caregiver histories of abuse were associated with children's probable class membership in the identified trajectories.

RESULTS

We identified three classes of emotion dysregulation trajectories: Well-Regulated, Increasingly Dysregulated, and Highly Dysregulated. Early experiences of multiple maltreatment types and caregiver history of abuse were associated with higher odds that children would be in the Increasingly Dysregulated and Highly Dysregulated classes compared to the Well-Regulated class.

CONCLUSION

The current study extends the literature on the negative associations of caregiver histories of abuse and child experiences of multiple maltreatment types to children's emotion dysregulation, which may be long-lasting. Furthermore, our findings highlight the need for intervening early as a crucial component of breaking the intergenerational impact of maltreatment.

Emotion regulation as mediator between childhood adversity and psychopathology: A meta-analysis

Childhood adversity is a major risk factor for multiple forms of psychopathology, and recent efforts have focused on understanding the underlying psychological mechanisms. One outstanding candidate is emotion regulation, which has been associated with both childhood adversity, and psychopathology. Based on the available evidence, the present meta-analysis set out to investigate the mechanistic involvement of emotion regulation in the relation between childhood adversity and psychopathology. Systematic searches in three databases (PubMed; PsycINFO; Web of Science) identified 215 eligible studies. Using meta-analytic structural equation modeling, we fitted a partial mediation model to the available data across studies, in which childhood adversity was related to psychopathology both directly and through emotion regulation. Multiple emotion regulation dimensions were analyzed, including emotion regulation difficulties and the habitual use of rumination, distraction, reappraisal, and suppression. Measures of psychopathology included a wide range of internalizing and externalizing symptoms in both clinical and non-clinical samples. The results indicated that childhood adversity was positively associated with emotion regulation difficulties, as well as with the habitual use of rumination and suppression. In turn, these measures of emotion regulation were positively associated with psychopathology. Habitual reappraisal use showed negative relations with both childhood adversity and psychopathology. All these emotion regulation measures were supported as mediators in the relation between childhood adversity and psychopathology. In contrast, distraction was not related to childhood adversity or psychopathology, and its mediator role was not supported. These results suggest that altered emotion regulation is a consistent marker of childhood adversity and contributes to risk of psychopathology.