CHILDREN’S EMOTIONAL RESPONSIVENESS AND THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF PARENTS’ EXPRESSIVE TENDENCIES DURING EMOTIONALLY POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE INTERACTIONS

This study examines how children learn emotional information and management from their primary caretakers during interactions with positive and negative narratives. Fifty-six preschoolers and their parents participated in a storytelling and discussion task, where each parent presented a happy and a sad story. Preschoolers were coded for their involvement, emotional comprehension, and concern, while parents were rated on their support, scaffolding, and expressiveness. Findings reveal that warm responsive and expressive parental behaviors contribute significantly to children’s cognitive and emotional skills during both positive and negative narrative interactions. Parents high in support and expressiveness (both during the task and within the home) had children who showed higher total expression, in addition to being more positively expressive, more involved, and more understanding of emotional concepts. These results reinforce previously established beliefs on the importance of emotionally open, positively expressive, and cognitively stimulating parent-child interactions on emotional, social, and regulatory competence.