Date of Graduation
Fall 2024
Degree
Master of Science in Early Childhood and Family Development
Department
School of Teaching, Learning & Developmental Sciences
Committee Chair
Hyunjin Choi
Abstract
Parenting is a demanding and stressful responsibility that leads to increased feelings of stress, anxiety, and depression among caregivers, which research has found to be significantly related to social incompetence and behavioral problems in children during early childhood. However, certain parenting practices such as parental emotion regulation, mindful parenting, and parental reflective functioning have been found to support children’s socioemotional development, and in particular emotion regulation. This study utilized a cross-sectional design to explore the relationship between the parenting practices of parental emotion regulation, mindful parenting, and parental reflective functioning in relation to children’s emotion regulation using simple linear regression analysis and hierarchical linear regression analysis. This study found all parenting practices to significantly influence children’s emotion regulation with parental reflective functioning being the most significantly related to children’s emotion regulation, over and above mindful parenting and parental emotion regulation. These findings highlight the importance of parents’ attempts to understand their child’s mental states and emotions with interest and curiosity. Additionally, this study advocates for parenting intervention programs that concentrate on parental reflective functioning to support young children’s emotion regulation development.
Keywords
mindful parenting, parental reflective functioning, emotion regulation, parental emotion regulation, parent–child interactions, parent–child relationship, preschool-aged children, mental states, pre-mentalizing, socioemotional development
Subject Categories
Child Psychology | Development Studies | Early Childhood Education | Family and Consumer Sciences | Family, Life Course, and Society
Copyright
© Kate A. Senack
Recommended Citation
Senack, Kate A., "Parents' Understanding of Children's Mental States: Emotion Regulation in Young Children and the Role of Mindful Parenting, Parental Reflective Functioning, and Parental Emotion Regulation" (2024). MSU Graduate Theses/Dissertations. 4022.
https://bearworks.missouristate.edu/theses/4022
Open Access
Included in
Child Psychology Commons, Development Studies Commons, Early Childhood Education Commons, Family and Consumer Sciences Commons, Family, Life Course, and Society Commons
