Poster #79 - Coping with COVID: Parental Influence on Children’s Use of Emotion Regulation Strategies at the Beginning of the COVID-19 Pandemic

• In Event: Poster Session 19

Abstract

Emotion regulation (ER) is the process through which individuals alter their emotional states with selective strategies at specific points during the emotion experience. These strategies normatively change as children age, as they learn best how and under what circumstances to implement the skills. Use of ER strategies, however, may hasten or halt in response to developmentally irregular stressors. The following study examined changes in children’s ER utilization in response to changes in their parents’ psychological symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic. Children ages 8-18 and their parents from the Gulf Coast region were invited to complete online questionnaires approximately six weeks after the first COVID-19 stay-at-home orders in Southeastern Louisiana (April-May 2020). Participants were recruited online through Facebook advertising and emails to local schools and parenting groups. After data cleaning and validation procedures, 391 parent-child pairs were included in the current analyses. Parents and children both completed self-report assessments of their depressive (Mood and Feelings Questionnaire [MFQ; Angold et al., 1995]) and irritability symptoms (Affective Reactivity Index [ARI; Stringaris et al., 2012] and Brief Irritability Test [BiTE; Holtzman et al., 2015]), both prior to and during the pandemic. Children also completed measures of their emotion regulation abilities (Emotion Regulation Questionnaire [ERQ ; Gross & John, 2003)] including use of expressive suppression (ES) and cognitive reappraisal (CR) as emotion regulation strategies. Results from moderation analyses in multiple linear regression indicated that more parental depression and irritability were associated with an increase in both children’s ES and CR. Furthermore, additional moderation analyses suggested that as parental depression increased, ES and CR use increased significantly for girls and not for boys, as well as older children. These moderation effects were not replicated with parental irritability, however, as increases in parental irritability led to increases in children’s ER use regardless of child sex or age. Results from the current study suggest that children’s emotional regulation is directly related to changes in parental psychopathology symptoms as a result of unexpected stressors, changes in familial routines, and distress around the COVID-19 pandemic. This further suggests that a moderate change in parental negative affect can trigger an increase in child’s use of ER skills. Finally, the sex and age moderations suggest that girls and older children are more likely to pick up on parental distress and adjust their ER strategies in response.

Authors

• Sarah Black, University of New Orleans

• Lauren Elizabeth Herbert, University of New Orleans
  Presenting Author

• Lauren Aaron, University of New Orleans

• Rachel M Kaplan, University of New Orleans

• David Brabham, University of New Orleans