Parenting Gets Under the Skin: Mother-Child Physiological Synchrony and Child Self-Regulation in Post-Deployed Military Families

Abstract

Parent-child physiological synchrony, which is characterized by the matching or concordance of physiological states among parents and children, has been theorized to be linked to children’s self-regulation and adaptive outcomes. However, the link between physiological synchrony and child regulatory outcomes was rarely examined in empirical studies, especially in the at-risk populations (i.e., post-deployed military families). Also, no research has investigated the impact of parenting interventions on physiological synchrony. Study 1 employed a multilevel growth modeling approach to model dynamic changes in respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) during a dyadic problem-solving task, and results showed a positive association between physiological synchrony and child self-regulation. Also, younger children tended to show positive lagged synchrony with mothers while older children tended to show negative lagged synchrony. Mothers’ emotion dysregulation was found to be associated with higher levels of lagged synchrony. Additionally, synchrony was found to be linked to both positive (i.e., fewer displays of anger/disgust, more positive physical behaviors, and less negative directive behaviors) and negative parenting behaviors (i.e., fewer displays of positive affect). Study 2 explored the effect of the After Deployment, Adaptive Parenting Tools/ADAPT parenting intervention on dyadic synchrony, as well as the moderation effect of synchrony at baseline on the indirect intervention effect on child self-regulation through changes in parental emotion socialization. Although the hypothesized intervention effect was not observed, dyads with negative synchrony at baseline were found to benefit more from the ADAPT intervention. The changes in emotion socialization behaviors were further associated with better child self-regulation. These two studies highlighted the importance of parent-child physiological synchrony in self-regulation development in children in military families who are at risk for developing maladaptive behaviors. The implications and future directions are discussed.