Emotion socialization in formerly homeless families.

Abstract

Emotional competence in children is increasingly understood as an outcome of parents‟ adaptive socialization behaviors. Parent‟s socialization of children‟s emotions and children‟s emotion competence were examined in a sample of formerly homeless mother-child dyads. Parents‟ supportive responses to children‟s expressed sadness predicted interpersonal and affective strength in children. Parental support for anger significantly predicted interpersonal, intrapersonal, and affective strengths. Qualitative interviews of parents indicated that mothers in formerly homeless families use a variety of both adaptive and maladaptive socialization strategies that have been associated with both resilience and psychopathology in children.