The development of toddlers' emotion regulation within the family system: associations with observed parent-child synchrony and interparental relationship satisfaction

This study used a family systems framework to examine associations between parent-child synchrony, interparental relationship satisfaction, and children's emotion regulation. The sample included 75 families from socioeconomically and ethnically diverse backgrounds who had a child between 18 and 27 months (M-age = 20.9 months). Mothers and fathers from the same families completed separate visits with their child. Mother-child and father-child synchrony (i.e., the extent to which dyads displayed a contingent pattern of communication) were coded from observations of parent-child teaching tasks completed individually with their child. Children's emotion regulation was coded from observations of a brief frustration task and included codes for children's emotional distress and adaptive coping (i.e., task-focused coping strategies). Results from dyadic path models demonstrated that father-child, but not mother-child, synchrony was associated with less distress in toddlers, and that fathers' self-reported interparental relationship satisfaction was negatively associated with toddlers' coping. The final model revealed that mothers' relationship satisfaction moderated associations between both mother-child and father-child synchrony and toddlers' adaptive coping. Further, fathers' relationship satisfaction moderated the association between father-child synchrony and toddlers' distress. These results suggest that the quality of father-child interactions play a unique and important role in supporting children's emotion regulation in challenging situations, and that interparental relationship satisfaction is a key factor to consider. Further, this work highlights the importance of considering the entire family system, such as how interactions between parents indirectly influence children's development. (C) 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.