Poster #81 - Maternal and Child Predictors of Children’s Emotion Regulation and Subjective Stress During the COVID-19 Pandemic

• In Event: Poster Session 19

Abstract

Introduction
Decades of developmental research have emphasized how caregivers’ responses in contexts of stress shape children’s perception of events as stressful and their post-exposure adaptation. The COVID-19 pandemic was a novel, profound stressor for families of young children, with negative impacts on maternal and child mental health (Grasso et al., 2021). Less work has looked at the intersection of parents’ and children’s lived experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic, and their co-contribution to children’s adaptation. Moreover, parents’ capacity to regulate their emotions in the face of stressors impacts children’s perception of events as stressful, as well as their own capacity to regulate their emotions (Morris et al., 2007; Sarıtaş & Gençöz, 2012). This study examines children’s emotion regulation and their perception of COVID-19 as stressful, in light of both children’s and parents’ cumulative and COVID-19 specific exposure to stressors, and caregivers’ emotion regulation capacities.
Hypotheses
We examined the association of maternal subjective COVID stress, maternal emotion dysregulation, child objective COVID stress, and child lifetime non-COVID stress with two outcomes: 1) child emotion regulation and 2) child subjective COVID stress. We predicted that higher maternal subjective COVID stress, maternal emotion dysregulation, child objective COVID stress, and child lifetime non-COVID stress, would be associated with lower child emotion regulation and higher child subjective COVID stress.
Methods
Between November 2020-March 2021, mothers (N = 75; Mage=33.89 years) reported on: their own emotion dysregulation (Difficulties in Emotion Dysregulation Scale: Gratz & Roemer, 2004); children’s (Cage=7.93 years) emotion regulation (Social Competence Scale-Emotion Regulation: Corrigan, 2002); maternal and child lifetime non-COVID stress (Life Events Checklist: Gray et al., 2004); maternal and child objective exposure to COVID-related life stressors (e.g., lost job; Epidemic-Pandemic Impacts Inventory: Grasso et al., 2020); and mother and child perception of COVID as stressful (e.g., “How stressed are you about not having enough help taking care of your child due to COVID-19?”; “How stressful did your child find restrictions on leaving your home?”). Mothers primarily self-identified as Black (80.0%) and reported salaries at or close to the federal poverty line (<185%); analyses covaried maternal educational attainment.
Results
In multivariate analyses, the regression predicting children’s emotion regulation was marginally significant (R2=.16, F(6,67)=1.33, p=.052, See Table 1), with children’s lifetime non-COVID stress emerging as the significant predictor. Children’s subjective COVID stress was significantly predicted by mothers’ emotion dysregulation, mothers’ subjective COVID stress, and children’s objective COVID stress (R2=.54, F(6,67)=13.19, p<0.001, See Table 2).
Discussion
These results suggest differential predictors of child emotion regulation and child subjective COVID stress during COVID-19. Child lifetime non-COVID stress predicted child emotion regulation, but not child subjective COVID stress. However, maternal emotion dysregulation, maternal subjective COVID stress, and children’s objective exposure to COVID-related stressors predicted children’s perceptions of COVID-19 as stressful. Findings highlight the importance of parent regulatory capacities and novel exposure to COVID stressors for children’s perception of the COVID-19 pandemic in broader familial contexts.

Authors

• Arielle Meital Morris, Tulane University
  Presenting Author

• Allison Pequet, Tulane University

• Sarah A.O. Gray, Tulane University