Emotion socialization in maltreating and nonmaltreating mother-child dyads: implications for children's adjustment.

This study investigated maternal emotion socialization in physically maltreating and nonmaltreating mother-child dyads (N = 63 dyads) to examine the relation between maternal support in response to children's emotional displays and children's psychological adjustment (i.e., internalizing and externalizing behavior problems). Child participants consisted of both boys (64%) and girls (36%) and ranged from 6 to 12 years of age. Findings indicated maltreatment negatively predicted maternal support and positively predicted children's internalizing and externalizing problems. Further, maternal support negatively predicted children's internalizing and externalizing problems. Finally, maternal support partially mediated the relation between maltreatment and internalizing problems. No mediation was indicated for externalizing difficulties. Findings suggest that a lack of maternal support in response to children's emotion is particularly important to the development of children's internalizing behavior problems.