Stephanie A. Shepard

Parental Reactions to Children's Negative Emotions: Longitudinal Relations to Quality of Children's Social Functioning

Relations between self-reported parental reactions to childrens negative emotions (PNRs) and childrens socially appropriate/problem behavior and negative emotionality were examined longitudinally. Evidence was consistent with the conclusion that relations between childrens externalizing (but not internalizing) emotion and parental punitive reactions to childrens negative emotions are bidirectional. Reports of PNRs generally were correlated with low quality of social functioning. In structural models, mother-reported problem behavior at ages 10-12 was at least marginally predicted from mother-reported problem behavior, childrens regulation, and parental punitive or distress reactions. Moreover, parental distress and punitive reactions at ages 6-8 predicted reports of childrens regulation at ages 8-10, and regulation predicted parental punitive reactions at ages 10-12. Father reports of problem behavior at ages 10-12 were predicted by earlier problem behavior and parental distress or punitive reactions; some of the relations between regulation and parental reactions were similar to those in the models for mother-reported problem behavior. Parental perceptions of their reactions were substantially correlated over 6 years. Some nonsupportive reactions declined in the early to mid-school years, but all increased into late childhood/early adolescence.

The Relations of Problem Behavior Status to Children's Negative Emotionality, Effortful Control, and Impulsivity: Concurrent Relations and Prediction of Change

The relations of childrens internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors to their concurrent regulation, impulsivity (reactive undercontrol), anger, sadness, and fearfulness and these aspects of functioning 2 years prior were examined. Parents and teachers completed measures of childrens (N = 185; ages 6 through 9 years) adjustment, negative emotionality, regulation, and behavior control; behavioral measures of regulation also were obtained. In general, both internalizing and externalizing problems were associated with negative emotionality. Externalizers were low in effortful regulation and high in impulsivity, whereas internalizers, compared with nondisordered children, were low in impulsivity but not effortful control. Moreover, indices of negative emotionality, regulation, and impulsivity with the level of the same variables 2 years before controlled predicted stability versus change in problem behavior status.

Consistency and Development of Prosocial Dispositions: A Longitudinal Study

The issue of whether there is consistency in prosocial dispositions was examined with a longitudinal data set extending from ages 4 to 5 years into early adulthood (N = 32). Spontaneous prosocial behaviors observed in the preschool classroom predicted actual prosocial behavior, other- and self-reported prosocial behavior, self-reported sympathy, and perspective taking in childhood to early adulthood. Prosocial behaviors that were not expected to reflect an other-orientation (i.e., low cost helping and compliant prosocial behavior) generally did not predict later prosocial behavior or sympathy. Sympathy appeared to partially mediate the relation of early spontaneous sharing to later prosocial dispositions. The results support the view that there are stable individual differences in prosocial responding that have their origins in early childhood.

Regulation, Emotionality, and Preschoolers' Socially Competent Peer Interactions.

In this study, the relations of regulatory control to the qualities of childrens everyday peer interactions were examined. Effortful control (EC) and observations of peer interactions were obtained from 135 preschoolers (77 boys and 58 girls, mean ages = 50.88 and 50.52, respectively). The results generally confirmed the prediction that children who are high in EC were relatively unlikely to experience high levels of negative emotional arousal in response to peer interactions, but this relation held only for moderate to high intense interactions. Socially competent responding was less likely to be observed when the interaction was intense or when negative emotions were elicited. Moreover, when the interactions were of high intensity, highly regulated children were likely to evidence socially competent responses. The relation of EC and intensity to social competence was partially mediated by negative emotional arousal. The results support the conclusion that individual differences in regulation interact with situational factors in influencing young childrens socially competent responding.

Relation of emotion-related regulation to children's social competence: a longitudinal study.

The differential relations of childrens emotion-related regulation (i.e., effortful control and impulsivity) to their personality resiliency, adult-rated popularity, and social competence were examined in children who were 4.5-7.9 years old and who were remeasured 2 years later. Parents and teachers reported on all constructs, and childrens attentional persistence was observed. Structural equation modeling was used to test the mediating role of resiliency on the relations between regulation/control and popularity using two-wave longitudinal data. The results provide some evidence of the mediating role of resiliency in the relations between effortful control and popularity, provide some evidence of bidirectional effects, and also buttress the view that emotional regulation should be differentiated into effortful and reactive forms of control.

The Relations of Effortful Control and Ego Control to Children's Resiliency and Social Functioning.

The relations of effortful control and ego control to childrens (mean age = 137 months) resiliency, social status, and social competence were examined concurrently (Time 3) and over time. Adults reported on the constructs, and a behavioral measure of persistence was obtained. At Time 3, resiliency mediated the unique relations of both effortful and reactive control to social status, and effortful control directly predicted socially appropriate behavior. Negative emotionality moderated the relations of ego and effortful control to socially appropriate behavior. When levels of the variables 2 years prior were accounted for, all relations held at Time 3 except that effortful control did not predict resiliency (even though it was the stronger predictor at Time 3) and ego control directly predicted socially appropriate behavior.

Contemporaneous and Longitudinal Relations of Dispositional Sympathy to Emotionality, Regulation, and Social Functioning

Individual differences in 10-through 12-year-olds’sympathetic tendencies were examined in relation to their regulation, negative emotionality, and social functioning contemporaneously as well as 2, 4, and 6 years earlier. Information was obtained for 33 girls and 31 boys from the school and home context. In general, adults’(teachers and parents) reports of young adolescents’sympathetic tendencies were associated with high regulatory abilities, low negative emotionality, and constructive social behaviors contempora-neously and, to some degree, 2, 4, and 6 years previously. Furthermore, in regression analyses, regulatory abilities during early adolescence as well as 2 years earlier uniquely predicted young adolescents’sympathetic tendencies after controlling for the effects of negative emotionality. Although findings were fairly similar across contexts, the majority of findings at school were for girls, whereas the pattern of findings at home was somewhat more consistent for boys than for girls.

The relations of emotionality and regulation to dispositional empathy-related responding among volunteers-in-training

Abstract Individual differences in emotional intensity and regulation have been postulated to influence vicarious emotional responding, which, in turn, has been posited to affect helping behavior. These relations were investigated in a sample consisting primarily of adults who were training to be volunteers at two sites (N=200). As hypothesized, negative emotional intensity was a positive predictor of dispositional sympathy and personal distress but did not predict perspective taking. Consistent with our expectations, regulation was a positive predictor of dispositional sympathy and perspective taking and was an inverse predictor of personal distress. The relation between negative emotional intensity and dispositional personal distress was moderated by perspective taking; as perspective taking increased, the strength of the positive relation between negative emotional intensity and personal distress decreased. In an exploratory analysis, the likelihood of starting a volunteer position was observed to decrease as negative emotional intensity increased.

Preventive Intervention for Early Childhood Behavioral Problems: An Ecological Perspective

The purpose of this article is to highlight the importance of preventive interventions targeting parents when addressing early childhood behavior problems. The authors briefly review evidence-based parent management training programs, focusing on one particular program, the Incredible Years (IY) Series. Next, the authors discuss the barriers to embedding evidence-based practice such as IY in community contexts and demonstrate how early childhood mental health consultation can be used to enhance community capacity to adopt evidence-based practice and improve outcomes for the large number of young children and their families in need.

Embedding the Family Check-Up and evidence-based parenting programmes in Head Start to increase parent engagement and reduce conduct problems in young children

Parent engagement (i.e. enrolment, ongoing attendance, participation quality) remains a major obstacle to fully realizing the benefits of evidence-based preventive parent management training in community settings. We describe an approach to parent engagement that addresses the myriad motivational, cognitive and pragmatic barriers parents face by embedding services in Head Start and applying a parent engagement model, the Family Check-Up, as a pre-intervention to augment parent training. In this article, we present the rationale for applying FCU to advance parent readiness for engagement and describe the process by which we partnered with the community to modify FCU to be most impactful for enhancing parent engagement in one specific programme, the Incredible Years Parenting Series. We conclude with preliminary data from our ongoing pilot trial that support our approach.