PARENTAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO PRESCHOOLERS EMOTIONAL COMPETENCE - DIRECT AND INDIRECT EFFECTS

The present study examines the contributions of (I) parental socializa tion of emotion and preschoolers' emotional interaction with parents t o their emotional competence, and (2) parental socialization and child emotional competence to their general social competence. Both observa tional and self-report techniques were used to measure emotion sociali zation, emotional competence, and social competence of preschoolers (a verage age = 49.8 months) from 60 middle-socioeconomic-status families . Data were collected in both classroom and home settings. In general, the results suggest that parental modeling of expressive styles and e motional responsiveness to child emotions are important predictors of preschoolers' emotional competence and their overall social competence . Children whose parents were more affectively positive tended to disp lay more positive emotion with peers, whereas children whose parents w ere more negative appeared less socially competent in the preschool. P arents who were better coaches of their children's emotions had childr en who understood emotions better Age and sex moderated several of the study's key findings. The results are consistent with earlier researc h indicating that parental socialization of emotion impacts the child' s emotional and social functioning both at home and in the preschool.