Mothers' Parenting Behaviors and School-Aged Children's Strategies and Competence of Emotional Regulation

In this study, the influence of mothers' parenting behaviors on children's strategies and competence of emotional regulation was examined. Further, the mediating effects of children's active-social support seeking and aggressive strategies on the above relationship were explored. The participants were W mother-child pairs. The children were 5th and 6th graders at two elementary schools in Kyunggi province and Kwangju metropolitan area The data were analyzed with descriptive statistics, factor analysis, Cronbach's alpha, Pearson correlations, standard multiple regressions and structural equation modeling analysis by LISREL 8.3. The main results of this study were as follows: (1) The more the mothers coached children with affection and reasoning, the more adaptive emotional regulation the children had; whereas children tended to have maladaptive emotional regulation in response to the mothers' rejecting and forceful parenting behaviors. Also, when children were coached by mothers with love, reasoning and consistent restriction, they used more active-social support seeking strategies, whereas they used more aggressive strategies when the mothers coached children with rejecting and forceful parenting behaviors. The more the mothers were rejecting, forceful and intervening, the more the children used passive-avoidant strategies. (2) The more the children used active-social support seeking strategies and the less the children used aggressive strategies, the more likely they had adaptive emotional regulation. The more the children used aggressive strategies, the more likely they had maladaptive emotional regulation. (3) Children's active-social support seeking strategies played a partial mediating role between mothers' affectionate and reasoned coaching and children's adaptive emotional regulation. These strategies, on the other hand, played a full mediating role between mothers' consistent restriction and children's adaptive emotional regulation. Children's aggressive strategies played a partial mediating role between mothers' rejecting and forceful parenting behaviors and children's maladaptive emotional regulation. Mothers' non-intervention had an influence on neither the children's aggressive strategies nor their maladaptive emotional regulation.