Poster #107 - Family Child Care Home Providers’ Emotion Regulation and their Responses to Children’s Social-Emotional Challenges

• In Event: Poster Session 06

Abstract

Background. Millions of families in the U.S. depend on Family Child Care Homes (FCCHs) for the care of their children (National Study of Early Childhood Education, 2015). Unfortunately, however, in comparison to center-based early care and education (ECE) settings, FCCHs and their providers have been understudied in the literature; though more children receive care and education through home-based services than center-based ones (Tonyan, 2017). Previous evidence from studies with ECE educators in child care centers suggests that when they are able to effectively regulate their emotions, they are likely to provide better emotional support and guidance for young children (masked, 2016; Jennings & Greenberg, 2009). Though to date, no research has investigated these associations with FCCH providers. It is important to understand these providers’ emotion regulation approaches (i.e., emotion suppression and cognitive reappraisal) as it may relate to their practices with children.

Research Question. The current study examined to what extent FCCH providers’ emotion regulation (i.e., emotion suppression and cognitive reappraisal) is associated with their responses to children’s social emotional challenges in the classroom.

Methods. To test this research question, we recruited a sample of 888 licensed FCCH providers across 40 states in the U.S. (M age ≈ 49 years, 98% female). Providers identified as 75% White/European American, 15% Black/African American, 6% Hispanic, and 4% Other. The participants cared for six to 12 children, ages birth to five. Participants completed the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ; Gross & John, 2003), the short form of the Coping with Children’s Negative Emotions Scale (CCNES; Fabes et al., 2002), and the Coping with Children’s Challenging Social Interactions (CCCSI; masked, 2016). Descriptive (Table 1) and multivariate regression analyses (Table 2) were conducted using Stata 17.

Results. As hypothesized, findings indicated that after controlling for covariates, providers’ emotion suppression was positively associated with their report of negative reactions and negative social guidance. However, emotion suppression was not associated with any of the supportive/positive response types. Further, providers’ cognitive reappraisal was positively associated with their report of all three supportive/positive responses: emotion expression, positive reactions, and positive social guidance. Cognitive reappraisal was also negatively associated with negative reactions. Though there was not a significant association between reappraisal and negative social guidance.

Conclusion. Findings from this study suggest that how FCCH providers regulate their own emotions is associated with how they would respond to children’s emotions. It is particularly concerning that FCCH providers’ endorsement of emotion suppression was significantly associated with their endorsement of non-supportive responses (i.e., negative reactions and negative social guidance) toward children’s emotional distress. This implies that this approach may get in the way of providers’ ability to provide emotional support and guidance when children need them the most. Future research should examine what factors may be related to FCCH providers’ use of emotional suppression. Researchers and practitioners may also work together to develop evidence-based programs that can help providers who emotionally suppress to develop alternative regulation strategies, as well as resilience, so they can feel more equipped to assist children with their emotional challenges.

Authors

• Ebony Danielle Leon, University of Virginia
  Presenting Author

• Sooyeon Byun, University of Virginia - Charlottesville

• Lieny Jeon, University of Virginia - Charlottesville