Coparental Affect, Children's Emotion Dysregulation, and Parent and Child Depressive Symptoms

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/famp.12184
• Date: 01 March 2017
• Published date: 01 March 2017

Coparental Affect, Children’s Emotion

Dysregulation, and Parent and Child Depressive

Symptoms

KRISTEL THOMASSIN*

CYNTHIA SUVEG

†

MOLLY DAVIS

†

JUSTIN A. LAVNER

†

STEVEN R. H. BEACH

†

Children’s emotion dysregulation and depressive symptoms are known to be affected by a

range of individual (parent, child) and systemic (parent–child, marital, and family) char-

acteristics. The current study builds on this literature by examining the unique role of

coparental affect in children’s emotion dysregulation, and whether this association medi-

ates the link between parent and child depressive symptoms. Participants were 51 mother –

father–child triads with children aged 7 to 12 (Mage =9.24 years). Triads discussed a

time when the child felt sad and a time when the child felt happy. Maternal and paternal

displays of positive affect were coded, and sequential analyses examined the extent to which

parents were congruent in their displays of positive affect during the emotion discussions.

Results indicated that interparental positive affect congruity (IPAC) during the sadness

discussion, but not the happiness discussion, uniquely predicted parent-reported child

emotion dysregulation, above and beyond the contributions of child negative affect and

parental punitive reactions. The degree of IPAC during the sadness discussion and child

emotion dysregulation mediated the association between maternal, but not paternal,

depressive symptoms and child depressive symptoms. Findings highlight the unique role of

coparental affect in the socialization of sadness in youth and offer initial support for low

levels of IPAC as a risk factor for the transmission of depressive symptoms in youth.

Keywords: Depression; Coparenting; Family process; Parent–child relations; Emotion

socialization

Fam Proc 56:126–140, 2017

Children’s emotion regulation and depressive symptoms are affected by a range of

influences, including individual characteristics of the child and parent (e.g., parents’

depressive symptomatology; Goodman & Gotlib, 1999; Maughan, Cicchetti, Toth, &

Rogosch, 2007) as well as systemic variables (e.g., parent–child, marital; Minuchin, 1988).

The emotion atmosphere within the family is theorized to be one primary pathway that

shapes children’s emotion regulation abilities as well as their propensity toward emotion

*Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.

†

Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Kristel Thomassin, School of Psychology,

University of Ottawa, Rm 4085 Vanier Hall, 136 Jean Jacques Lussier, Ottawa, ON, K1N 6N5 Canada.

E-mail: kristel.thomassin@uottawa.ca

The research discussed here was supported in part by grants from The University of Georgia Research

Foundation and the William A. and Barbara R. Owens Institute for Behavioral Research.

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Family Process, Vol. 56, No. 1, 2017 ©2015 Family Process Institute

doi: 10.1111/famp.12184