Development and initial validation of the children's sadness management scale

Although sadness in children is a normal and transient experience, research has not investigated how children manage sadness. Understanding normative sadness management has important implications for helping children who exhi bit maladaptive forms of emotional expression. The Children's Sadness Manag ement Scale (CSMS) was developed to assess children's inhibition, dysregula ted-expression, and coping with sadness experience and expression. Using mu ltiple informants, reliability and validity were established based on a com munity sample of 227 fourth- and fifth-grade children's self-report, matern al report (N = 171), and peer ratings of behavior (N = 227). A three-factor solution was supported with strong internal consistency for the Inhibition scale and moderately strong internal consistency for the Emotion Regulatio n Coping and Dysregulated-Expression scales. Findings indicate that the CSM S provides a reliable and valid measure of normative sadness management.