Do parents respond in different ways when children feel different emotions? The emotional context of parenting.

When children experience emotions, do they view their primary caregiver as reacting in a different manner depending on the children's different emotions? Parental socialization of negative emotions and child psychopathology were examined among 161 inner city youth ages 11-14 years. These early adolescents were more likely to perceive their parents as responding in a different manner to different emotions than responding in the same way to different emotions. In addition, we asked if emotion-specific socialization strategies tell us more about child psychopathology than global socialization strategies do. Exploratory analyses suggest that a mixture of both emotion-specific and global socialization strategies may best predict child psychopathology. It remains important to clarify the emotional context of socialization strategies.