Profiles of Parental Self- and Child-Focused Emotion Regulation: Longitudinal Associations With Parental Exhaustion, Children’s Internalizing Problems, Children’s Achievement, and the Parent–Child Relationship

Abstract

Parenting is an emotion-eliciting experience that requires parents to navigate the dual demands of regulating their own and their children’s emotions. However, patterns of such self- and child-focused emotion regulation (ER) and their associations with parental exhaustion, children’s internalizing problems, children’s academic achievement, and parent–child relationships remain unexplored. Our preregistered three-wave online study targeted U.S. parents of sixth–ninth graders (N = 1,046; 52% mothers; Mage = 43.22). We employed latent profile analyses and latent transition analyses. Results revealed three profiles of parental self- and child-focused ER strategies, stable across a 4-month timeframe: Reappraisers (T1 ≈ 9%, T2 ≈ 7%) showed high use of self- and child-focused reappraisal, self-ruminators (T1 ≈ 25%, T2 ≈ 31%) reported high self-focused rumination and low use of other strategies, and average regulators (T1 ≈ 66%, T2 ≈ 62%) showed moderate use of all strategies. In addition, reappraisers reported the lowest levels of parental exhaustion and children’s internalizing problems and the highest parent–child relationship closeness. By contrast, self-ruminators reported the highest levels of parental exhaustion and children’s internalizing problems and the lowest parent–child relationship closeness. However, profile membership did not predict children’s academic achievement. The study provides important insights into distinct subgroups of parents on the basis of their combined use of self- and child-focused ER strategies, highlighting the differential impacts of these strategies on parental well-being and child outcomes. Implications for further research and practice are discussed.