Parents' Emotional Behavior and Their Children's Empathy and Emotion Regulation During the Covid-19 Lockdown

• In Event: Parenting and Children's Empathy Across Age and Risk Context

Abstract

Early childhood is a meaningful period for emotional socialization (Denham, 2007). Parents play a major role in creating the family's emotional climate, helping children recognize, share emotions, and supporting their emotion regulation (Milyavsk et al., 2018; Nelson et al, 2012; Raikes & Tompson, 2006). Parents’ contributions are even more important when the family is exposed to changes and complicated situations in their life (Rutherford at al., 2015). These emotional changes may affect children's methods of coping with their emotions (Halevi et al, 2016; Gatenio-Kalush & Cohen, 2019). In their battle with the Coronavirus, Israel enforced a lockdown during which residents were required to stay home, and jobs and educational frameworks were closed. This situation may have evoked a feeling of lack of control and worry in many families. In this study, we examined the contribution of the home's atmosphere, parents’ emotional regulation, and parents’ emotion expressiveness to the children's empathy and emotional regulation during the COVID-19 lockdown.
Participants included 343 parents (49 fathers and 294 mothers) and their children (151 male and 192 female) ranging in age from 3-8-years old (M = 62.01, SD = 18.44) Parents were asked to complete a questionnaire referencing the period of lockdown in Israel that took place between March and May. The questionnaire included items regarding the atmosphere at home (relaxed or stressed), their emotional regulation strategies: reappraisal and suppression (Gross & John, 2003), and positive and negative emotion expressiveness (Halberstadt et al., 1995). Additionally, parents assessed their children's empathy (Kochanska et al., 1994) and emotion regulation that included two components: negativity/lability and adaptive emotion regulation (Shields & Cicchenti, 1997).
Path analysis was conducted to examine direct and indirect effects (model of mediation) using Mplus V.8.0. Analyses revealed directs effects: The atmosphere at home was associated with child negativity/lability (b=-.18, SE=.06). That is, a more stressful atmosphere at home predicted greater mood flexibility and dysregulated affect for the child. Parent's cognitive reappraisal, indicating an effective strategy for emotional regulation, was associated with child negativity/lability (b=-.12, SE=.05) and child adaptive emotion regulation (b=.22, SE=.06). Indirect effects also were found: parent's positive expressiveness mediated the relation between home atmosphere (b=.09, SE=.03), parents’ cognitive reappraisal (b=.17, SE=.03) and suppression (b=.16, SE=.03) to child's empathy. Parents’ negative expressiveness partially mediated the relation between parents’ cognitive reappraisal and the child's negativity/lability (b=-.06, SE=.02). Additionally, parents’ positive expressiveness mediated the relation between home atmosphere (b=.06, SE=.02), parents’ cognitive reappraisal (b=.10, SE=.03), suppression (b=-.10, SE=.02), and child adaptive emotion regulation.
Parents’ positive and negative emotion expressiveness played a significant role in promoting children's emotional development. The mediation model suggests that the home atmosphere and parents’ emotional regulation strategies may contribute to the children’s ability to express empathy and regulate their emotions through parents’ positive and negative emotion expressiveness. The study's findings highlight the importance of parents' emotional behavior, and its connection to their children's emotional development during the challenging period of the worldwide COVID-19 crisis.

Author

• Rotem Schapira, Levinsky College of Education and Tel-Aviv university, Israel
  Presenting Author