Mother's emotion coaching and preschooler's emotionality: Moderation by maternal parenting stress

This paper examined the moderating role of maternal parenting stress on the reciprocal relations between maternal emotion coaching and child emotionality. Participants included 126 preschoolers and their mothers, assessed at two time points, when children were three (T1) and four (T2). Mothers' coaching of positive emotion, sadness, fear and anger was observationally assessed in a laboratory task at T1 and T2. Mothers reported child emotionality at T1 and T2, and their parenting stress at T1. Path analyses revealed that low levels of maternal coaching of sadness predicted more prospective child sad emotionality, only at moderate and high levels of maternal parenting stress. Child angry emotionality predicted less future maternal coaching of anger, only among highly stressed mothers. Additionally, child fearful emotionality predicted more subsequent maternal coaching of fear. Findings supported the importance of maternal emotion coaching in the context of stress and highlighted areas for intervention programs.