Mother-Child Cooperation Moderates the Association between Family Conflict and Child Emotional Control Problems

• In Event: Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Topic - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Abstract

According to family systems theory (Frankel et al., 2015), children’s development can be influenced by the emotional climate of the family (Fosco & Grych, 2012). Family conflict in particular can undermine children’s emerging capacity for emotion regulation, whereas a cohesive family climate can promote it (Davies & Cummings, 1998; Morris et al., 2007). It is less clear, however, whether a positive parent-child relationship in the context of broader family conflict can mitigate the negative effects of family conflict on children’s later emotion regulation problems. The current study attempted to fill this gap by examining whether family conflict or the level of mother-child mutual cooperation observed during social interaction, assessed at age 3, or their interaction, was associated with children’s emotional control problems at age 5. We hypothesized that greater family conflict at age 3 would be associated with more child emotional control problems at age 5, but that a higher level of mutual cooperation during mother-child interactive tasks at age 3 would moderate this association.
Participants included 53 mother-child dyads (54.7% male children) from an ongoing longitudinal study on urban child and family development. Mothers were mostly from low SES backgrounds (49% had a high school education or less; 62.2% had annual incomes less than $20,000) and varied in race/ethnicity (81.1% were African American, 13.2% Caucasian, 5.7% other). At the 3-year lab visit, mothers reported on family conflict using the Family Environment Scale-Revised (FES-R; Moos & Moos, 1994), and mother-child dyads were videotaped during free play, clean-up, and teaching interaction tasks. Trained, reliable coders scored the videotaped interactions in each task for level of dyadic cooperation (M ICC=.81) using a 7-point Likert scale from the PARCHISY scoring system (Deater-Deckard et al., 1997). Scores were averaged across tasks for analysis. At the age 5 visit, mothers reported on their children’s emotional control problems using the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function-Preschool version (BRIEF-P; Gioia et al., 2003). Age-referenced t scores were used.
Results of a hierarchical regression controlling for child sex, maternal education, and income supported our hypotheses. Greater family conflict at age 3 was associated with more child emotional control problems at age 5 (Table 1). This association was moderated by observed mother-child cooperation during social interaction tasks at age 3 (Table 1 and Figure 1). Simple slopes analyses showed that higher family conflict was associated with poorer child emotional control when dyads exhibited lower mutual cooperation during social the interaction tasks (-1 SD), β = -.57, p < .001. However, when cooperation was high (+1 SD), this association was attenuated, β = -.01, p = .94.
Consistent with prior research, findings in this mostly low-income, urban sample indicate that family conflict during early childhood is associated with more child emotion control problems at age 5. However, a higher level of mutual cooperation during mother-child social interaction can buffer this association. In future research, investigators should evaluate the interplay between family climate and parent-child relationship quality when evaluating risk and protective factors associated with children’s early emotion regulation development.

Authors

• Anna Rushing, Wayne State University
  Presenting Author

• Marjorie Beeghly, Wayne State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Toni Lewis
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sarah Wilhoit, Wayne State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Christopher Joseph Trentacosta, Wayne State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Moriah E. Thomason, New York University School of Medicine
  Non-Presenting Author