Maternal Education and Child Self-Regulation: Do Maternal Self-Regulation and Responsiveness Mediate the Association?

OBJECTIVE:To examine the mediating role of observed maternal responsiveness and maternal self-regulation on the association be-tween maternal education and children's self-regulation.METHODS:English-speaking mother-child dyads (n = 189) were recruited from a previous study and were eligible if the child was kindergarten eligible at the start of the 2020 to 2021 or 2021 to 2022 school year. Key measures included: Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale-Short Form for maternal emotional self-reg-ulation, Culturally Affirming and Responsive Experiences for maternal responsiveness, and the Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders for child self-regulation. The association between years of maternal education and child self-regulation was examined with linear re-gression, and the mediation analyses utilized 4 subsequent steps examining their relations. These steps were checked through a series of linear regressions, and beta weights were used to describe associations. Each potential mediator was examined separately.RESULTS:Children of mothers with higher education had sig-nificantly higher self-regulation, slope of 1.3 (95% confidence interval 0.3, 2.4, P = 0.015, beta = 0.18). Further, mothers with higher education had significantly higher observed responsive-ness. The beta-weight of 0.34 (P < 0.001) supported maternal responsiveness as a mediator. Finally, in the test for direct and indirect effects, observed maternal responsiveness explained 29% (95% confidence interval 3.3%, 115%) of the association between maternal education and child self-regulation.CONCLUSIONS:This study highlights a key mechanism related to children's self-regulation skills and the sig-nificant role of observed maternal responsiveness in ex-plaining the association between maternal education and child self-regulation