Caregiver Discomfort in Response to Children’s Emotion Displays

Abstract

The emotion socialization behaviors that caregivers engage in with their own children are influenced, in part, by their own emotional responses to situations. One theory of why caregivers’ behaviors differ in response to different child emotions centers on variability in caregiver discomfort around these emotions. Further, this discomfort is postulated to stem from a caregiver’s experiences during their emotional expressions in childhood with their own caregivers (hereafter called “remembered” caregiving). However, limited research exists on the interplay between caregivers’ remembered caregiving experiences and their own discomfort in response to children’s emotions. This study aimed to explore (1) the association between valence of children’s emotions and caregiver discomfort, (2) differences across discrete emotions and caregiver discomfort, and (3) the potential influence of recalled emotion socialization experiences on caregiver discomfort. In a sample of 234 caregivers (136 mothers; 98 fathers; Mage = 35.62, SD = 4.14 years) of 146 preschool-aged children, child negative emotions were found to elicit more discomfort than positive emotions, but no emotion-level differences emerged within discrete negative emotions (i.e., anger, fear, and sadness). Caregivers who recalled that their own caregivers responded to their emotions in childhood with an outcome-oriented goal (e.g., walking away to stop the emotional display) reported more discomfort to their own children’s negative emotions. These findings contribute to our understanding of intergenerational transmission of caregiving behaviors, emphasizing the role of negative caregiving experiences in shaping caregiver comfortability with their child’s negative emotions.

The caregiver–child relationship plays a central role in children’s emotional development (Byford et al., 2012; Davidov & Grusec, 2006; Hajal & Paley, 2020; Lomanowska et al., 2017). An important process in child emotion development is emotion socialization, or how children learn to understand and regulate their emotions through the caregiving relationship. Caregivers’ response (or non-response) to children’s emotional displays may influence the frequency and intensity of a child’s emotional expressions (Bariola et al., 2012; Jaffe et al., 2010; Smiley et al., 2016) and may be linked with downstream consequences in emotion functioning (Denham et al., 1994; Eisenberg et al., 1998; Hajal & Paley, 2020; McKee et al., 2022; Yap et al., 2008; Yi et al., 2016). Supportive caregiving behaviors during a child’s emotional expression may be positively associated with child emotion regulation and understanding (Denham et al., 1994; McKee et al., 2022; Yi et al., 2016). Conversely, caregiver discouragement or punishment of a child’s emotional expression is linked to child avoidance of exploring or expressing that emotion (Denham et al., 1994; Eisenberg et al., 1998; Hajal & Paley, 2020; McKee et al., 2022; Smiley et al., 2016; Yap et al., 2008; Yi et al., 2016). The Circle of Security intervention (Powell et al., 2014) postulates that caregivers may struggle to provide comfortable environments around children’s emotions due to their own discomfort (“Shark Music,” in reference to the soundtrack to the movie Jaws, in which this music signals the risk of potential danger) triggered by the child’s emotional display (Powell et al., 2014). Discomfort can be defined as a negative, low-intensity internal emotion urging the termination of a prompting stimulus (i.e., a child’s emotional expression). While the consequences of the caregiver discouragement of emotional expression are well-established, less is known about what types of emotions are most likely to elicit feelings of discomfort in caregivers. Examining what emotions are associated with increased caregiver discomfort, as well as individual differences in the tendency to experience discomfort, is important for advancing our understanding of emotion socialization. This research can help identify potential targets for promoting more supportive and validating emotional responses within the caregiver–child relationship.

Previous work examining parental discomfort has operationalized discomfort as a behavioral reaction to children’s emotions that show parental unease, embarrassment, or distress (Yap et al., 2008). The definition of discomfort in the literature differs from our own in a few meaningful ways: it includes other emotions, such as embarrassment and distress, and focuses on discomfort as a behavior. However, given limited research on caregiver discomfort, literature citing this construct of a discomfort response is relevant in understanding how parental emotions of discomfort or unease are linked to caregiver–child outcomes. Importantly, there is an established relationship between parent’s discomfort response and caregiver–child outcomes (Gentzler et al., 2015; Mazzone & Nader-Grosbois, 2017; Yap et al., 2008; Yi et al., 2016) in families in Australia, the United States, and Western Europe. Maternal discomfort in response to positive emotions is associated with less encouragement (e.g., “let my child play and have fun”), and greater reprimanding (e.g., “tell my child, in a firm voice, to stop jumping and running around immediately”) (Yap et al., 2008). Caregiver discomfort, additionally, is negatively associated with caregiver’s emotion functioning skills (e.g., emotion knowledge; Mazzone & Nader-Grosbois, 2017) and positively associated with both caregiver and child psychopathology symptoms longitudinally (e.g., maternal anxiety, adolescent depression; Gentzler et al., 2015; Yap et al., 2008; Yi et al., 2016). Intervention research adds additional evidence to the role of caregiver discomfort: caregivers who underwent the Circle of Security intervention and learned tools to dismantle discomfort responses were more likely to be present with their children’s emotions (i.e., “be with”), and their children, in turn, had greater emotion functioning (e.g., emotion regulation) longitudinally (Huber et al., 2015). Thus, although emotion socialization is dependent on behavioral reactions to emotions, there may be a mechanistic role of caregiver discomfort in connecting children’s emotional expressions to those behaviors. As such, children may be internalizing their caregiver’s discomfort as they learn how to express and understand their own emotions. Despite the relative lack of research on caregiver discomfort, researchers identify a clear consensus that discomfort, or constructs akin to discomfort (e.g., unease), with emotions is maladaptive and may play a fundamental role in emotion socialization.

Caregivers are less likely to experience positive emotions in response to their children’s negative emotions, compared to their positive emotions (Wu et al., 2017). Emotions perceived as negative by caregivers, especially anger, are more likely to be met with caregiver distress (e.g., anger, frustration; Fabes et al., 2002; Feng et al., 2008; Wu et al., 2017). In addition, child expressed anger is associated with maternal negative emotions when measured concurrently, even beyond other negative emotional expressions (Cole et al., 2013). Taken together, discomfort will likely be more prevalent in response to negative emotions compared with positive emotions, and perhaps most strongly for anger.

Existing self-report measures for assessing caregiver emotion socialization have focused broadly on caregivers’ responses to children’s emotions contextualized with factors exogenous of the caregiver–child dyad (e.g., losing a toy; Fabes et al., 2002), rather than focusing on children’s emotions elicited by something a caregiver has done (e.g., caregiver taking a toy away). In the latter scenario, the child may express anger or sadness directed at their caregiver, rather than expressing it around their caregiver generally. One common measurement of caregiver emotion socialization is the Coping with Children’s Negative Emotions Scale (CCNES; Fabes et al., 2002), a self-report measure that probes caregivers’ behavioral and emotional reactions to their child’s negative emotions using vignettes. This measure focuses largely on children’s general negative emotions (e.g., being upset about falling and breaking their bike, being fearful of a shot/injection, feeling embarrassed after making a mistake around friends), but not exclusively: some items could be interpreted as caregiver-directed, leaving the direction of the emotion ambiguous (i.e., being angry because they are sick and must miss a birthday party, feeling nervous because caregiver can’t stay with them on a playdate). Reactions to emotional expressions differ based on the target of the emotion and elicit particularly strong reactions when directed at oneself or close kin (Molho et al., 2017; Ocampo et al., 2023). Additionally, the harmful actions of others elicit the highest levels of anger and aggression in individuals when one is the target of such behaviors, as compared to when an individual witnesses harmful actions targeted at others (Molho et al., 2017). Given that, we sought to assess caregiver reactions to child emotional expressions directed toward the caregiver (hereafter: caregiver-directed emotions, which capture reactions and responses to emotions directed at the caregiver in response to something they did).

Although certain emotional displays (e.g., caregiver-directed anger) may elicit greater discomfort, on average, there are likely differences between caregivers in likelihood of experiencing discomfort with children’s emotional expressions. Caregivers’ tendencies to engage in specific caregiving behaviors (e.g., minimizing a child’s emotions) tend to be transmitted intergenerationally, such that caregivers draw on their own experiences and memories from their childhood and implement such strategies and behaviors in their own caregiving (Leerkes & Siepak, 2006). Intergenerational transmission of caregiving seems to be strongest for negative caregiving behaviors, such as unsupportive caregiving, maltreatment, and neglect (Berlin et al., 2011; Luke & Banerjee, 2013) ; these early experiences are associated with difficulties in later emotional understanding (Luke & Banerjee, 2013). In sum, negative caregiving experiences are linked to later emotion socialization, however caregiving discomfort with children’s emotional displays has not been examined as a mechanism of the intergenerational transmission of caregiving behaviors, despite strong theoretical reasoning for such a connection. Although testing the mechanistic role of caregiver discomfort was beyond the scope of the current study, we aim to establish the relation between caregiver discomfort and children’s emotions, as well as one’s own caregiving experiences.

Drawing on the behaviors identified in the Circle of Security theory (Powell et al., 2014), Bailes and colleagues (2023) identified three categories of socialization behaviors: process-oriented (i.e., caregiving behaviors that encourage children’s processing of their emotions such as acknowledging the emotion), outcome-oriented (i.e., caregiving behaviors that minimize or punish children’s emotions, such as telling them to stop feeling the emotion), and distraction (i.e., caregiving behaviors that divert children’s attention away from the source of distress). These behaviors reflect caregivers’ ability to “be with” their child’s emotion: to be emotionally available and provide scaffolding (e.g., identifying the child’s emotion and the context of the emotion) during a child’s emotional experience. This conceptualization of emotion socialization thoroughly captures the potential behaviors that we hypothesize to be associated with adaptive emotional development (e.g., emotion labelling, physical touch).

Current Study

Emotion socialization behaviors have important implications for child emotion development, and yet caregivers’ emotional experiences in response to their children’s caregiver-directed emotional displays remains an important and relatively unexplored area. In this study, we examined (1) whether levels of caregiver discomfort were associated with displays of different types of child caregiver-directed emotions, (2) whether there were individual-level differences in caregiver reports of discomfort, such that certain caregivers may feel more discomfort than others around their children’s caregiver-directed emotions, and (3) whether individual differences in discomfort were explained in part by recalled experiences of their own history of emotion socialization. We examined these associations with a focus on early childhood (i.e., 3–6 years old), as early childhood represents a period in which children rely on caregivers to scaffold their emotions (Eisenberg et al., 1998; Fabes et al., 2002), but are also encountering the world with greater independence and cognitive and social competence than in infancy (Lemerise & Harper, 2010). Additionally, this age marks the onset of memory retention (Scarf et al., 2013), important both for measurement and internal cognitions regarding emotion socialization. We hypothesized that (1) children’s expressions of negative caregiver-directed emotions would be associated with higher rates of caregiver discomfort than positive caregiver-directed emotions, (2) caregivers displaying higher levels of endorsed discomfort around any discrete caregiver-directed emotion would be more likely to experience discomfort around other discrete caregiver-directed emotions, and (3) remembered experiences of outcome-oriented caregiving experiences would be more strongly associated with discomfort with child caregiver-directed emotional expressions than process-oriented caregiving experiences.

Method

Participants

We recruited participants via two online databases run through Vanderbilt University that consist of families in Davidson County who have indicated interest in participating in research. In addition, participants could also refer others to the study. To be eligible for the study, caregivers were required to be fluent in English and have a child between the ages of 3 and 5.99 years old. For caregivers with more than one child within the age range, participants were asked to report on the eldest child in the range. We also asked caregivers to recruit a co-caregiver (e.g., mothers refer the child’s father) to participate in the study about the same child, if applicable. The original sample resulted in 254 (136 mothers, 118 fathers; Mage = 35.62, SD = 4.14 years) participants reporting on 146 children. We implemented three attention check questions across the survey and removed data from participants who did not answer these questions accurately, which resulted in a final sample of 234 (136 mothers, 98 fathers). In total, 152 unique families participated and 88 of those families had two caregivers having completed questionnaires. Caregivers were given the option to complete an additional survey in order to compare with an existing measure of emotion socialization. Information obtained from the optional questionnaire are included in this study (n = 142, n = 94 mothers, n = 48 fathers; Mage = 35.37, SD = 4.18). More demographic information can be found in Table 1 for the full sample. Participant demographics for the subset of 142 participants who completed an additional emotion socialization measure are included in the Supplemental Table 1.

Table 1.

Participant Demographics

Variable	n	%
Caregiver Race
White	219	94
Black/African American	6	3
Asian/Asian American	5	2
Biracial or Multiracial	4	2
Caregiver Ethnicity
Not Hispanic or Latine	225	96
Hispanic or Latine	9	4
Caregiver Education
High School Diploma/GED	4	2
Some College	26	11
Trade/Technical School	6	3
Bachelor’s Degree or Greater	198	85
Caregiver Marital Status
Married/Domestic Partnership	226	97
Single, never married	4	2
Divorced	4	2
Caregiver Employment Status
Employed full time	155	66
Homemaker	33	14
Employed part time	19	8
Self-employed	17	7
Out of work, not looking for work	5	2
Student	3	1
Military	1	0.4
Other	1	0.4
Gross Annual Household Income (US$)
$5,001–15,000	1	0.4
$15,001–30,000	4	2
$30,001–60,000	19	8
$60,001–90,000	41	18
$90,001–150,000	93	40
$150,000–250,000	60	26
More than $250,000	14	6
Not reported	2	1
Number of Children
One child	45	19
More than one child	189	81

Sample size was determined without conducting an a-priori power analysis. Post-hoc power analyses conducted in G*Power 3.1.9.7 (Faul et al., 2007, 2009) suggested that we were adequately powered with a sample of 234 to detect the smallest effect found (power = .87). Importantly, given that these observations are not independent from one another, we accounted for interdependence in our power analysis by including an adjusted sample size using a design effect calculation (Eldridge et al., 2006). We calculated a design effect coefficient (see Elridge et al., 2006), which accounts for the average cluster size and the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC = .05). Based on this calculation, our adjusted sample size for calculating power was n = 227.18. Using the pwr package in R (Champely et al., 2020), we determined that at power = .80 and alpha = .05, with a sample of 227.18, the smallest possible f² we could detect was .05.

Procedure & Measures

Recruitment, procedure, and measures were all in accordance with and approved by the Institutional Review Board at Vanderbilt University (#201722). Participants were sent an online survey via REDCap (Research Electronic Data Capture) hosted at Vanderbilt University (Harris et al., 2009, 2019). First, participants provided informed consent before continuing to complete a battery of questionnaires. Study questionnaires are openly available through OSF (https://osf.io/58aev/?view_only=ec436e083d9a4f58bf2adb9c95fcaf59). We compensated participants with a $20 Amazon gift card for their participation. Participants had the option to include the name of their child’s other caregiver (e.g., partner, ex-partner), and if both caregivers of the child participated, the pair received an additional $10 Amazon gift card.

Comfort, Attunement, and Validation of Emotions (CAVE) Measure.

Using concepts from Powell and colleagues’ (2014) Circle of Security, the CAVE measure was developed as an assessment of caregivers’ self-reported emotions in response to children’s caregiver-directed emotions (Humphreys & Lempres, 2022). First, caregivers indicate if their children expressed three positive (i.e., happiness, excitement, kindness) and three negative emotions (i.e., anger, fear, sadness). In response to each of their child’s caregiver-directed negative emotions, caregivers then endorse how likely they were to experience feeling twelve different discrete emotions as a response to their child’s caregiver-directed negative emotion: attentive, guilty, sad, stressed, frustrated, angry, uncomfortable, excited, happy, calm, indifferent, proud. The questions were asked in reference to emotional expressions that were expressed by their preschool-age child (i.e., 3-5 years old), with no specified age or time restriction. The scale consists of a 7-point Likert rating with values ranging from −3 (very unlikely) to 3 (very likely), and an additional option of 0 as unsure. In the current study, only responses for caregivers’ feelings of discomfort were used, such that higher scores reflect more discomfort towards their child’s caregiver-directed emotions. Cut-offs for high collinearity between variables is set at |r| < .7 (Dormann et al., 2013), and discomfort and other caregiver emotions (e.g., guilt) have been found to be correlated below r = .6 (Bailes et al., 2023).

CAVE: Remembered Caregiving.

Again, using concepts from Powell and colleagues’ (2014) Circle of Security, the Remembered Caregiving version of the CAVE measure was developed as an assessment of current caregivers’ self-reported remembered experiences of caregiving when they were preschool aged (Humphreys & Lempres, 2022). Caregivers were asked to disclose the number and type of caregivers that were present during their childhood and then asked to report on each of their caregivers’ behaviors in response to their own negative emotions (i.e., sadness, anger, fear) during their preschool-years (i.e., 3-5 years old): “Focus on your relationship(s) with your primary caregiver(s) during the period of your life when you were 3, 4, or 5 years old”. The caregivers endorse how likely their own caregivers’ were to engage in six different behavioral responses: distraction, tell me to stop [being/feeling] emotion, hold me, walk away from me, tease/mock me, or acknowledge emotion to each of the negative emotions. The scale consists of a 7-point Likert rating with values ranging from −3 (very unlikely) to 3 (very likely), and an additional option of 0 as unsure, such that higher scores reflect caregivers’ endorsement of remembering that specific caregiving behavior. Participants were able to report on up to four caregivers, but indicated which individual was their primary caregiver. Only data from the indicated primary caregivers of our participants were included in these analyses. Four participants said they did not have at least one stable caregiver throughout their childhood, resulting in 230 responses for these analyses. Of the 230 participants, 215 (93%) indicated that the primary caregiver was their biological mother, 8 (3%) indicated the biological fathers, and 7 (3%) indicated other (e.g., adopted mother, step-mother). Caregivers reported on their confidence in memory recall of their own caregiver’s behavior for each of the six emotional expressions. Confidence was assessed with a scale, with 0 representing “not at all confident” and 100 representing “very confident,” following the prompt: “How confident are you in these recollections of your relationship between you and [caregiver]? Following procedures from Bailes et al. (2023), we generated three subscales: remembered process-oriented caregiving responses (i.e., composite of 6 items; hold me and talk about emotion with me across anger, fear, and sadness, α = .91), remembered outcome-oriented caregiving responses (i.e., composite of 6 items; tell me to stop and walk away from me across anger, fear, and sadness, α = .83), and distraction (i.e., composite of three items try to distract me across anger, fear, and sadness, α = .80). Mock/tease me was dropped from analyses given low endorsement of such behaviors, consistent with Bailes et al., 2023. Higher scores on each composite reflected a higher endorsement of that specific type of remembered caregiving behavior. Descriptive statistics for the three composite scores are provided in Table 2.

Table 2.

Descriptive Statistics for Remembered CAVE Questionnaire Composites

Category of Remembered Caregiver Behavior	Mean	SD	Minimum Observed Score	Maximum Observed Score
Remembered Process-Oriented	0.83	1.69	−3.00	3.00
Remembered Outcome-Oriented	−1.15	1.40	−3.00	3.00
Remembered Distraction	0.00	1.84	−3.00	3.00

Coping with Children’s Negative Emotions Scale (CCNES).

Caregivers were provided the option to complete an additional questionnaire regarding their behaviors to their children’s negative emotions directed outside of the caregiver–child relationship. Caregivers are provided with twelve hypothetical scenarios that may elicit distress in their child (e.g., “If my child loses some prized possession and reacts with tears, I would …”) and asked to rate their likelihood to engage in six different reactions on a Likert-type scale from 1 (very unlikely) to 7 (very likely). Caregiver responses represent six different subscales: problem-focused reactions, emotion-focused reactions, expressive encouragement, distress reactions, minimizing reactions, and punitive reactions. For the purpose of this paper, we summed responses on three items from the distress reaction subscale indicating discomfort with certain emotions: “If my child becomes nervous and upset because I can’t stay with them, I would… feel upset and uncomfortable because of my child’s reactions”, “If my child makes a mistake and looks embarrassed, I would… feel uncomfortable and embarrassed myself”, “If my child is shy and scared around strangers, I would… feel upset and uncomfortable because of my child’s reactions.” These three discomfort items from the CCNES were moderately positively correlated with one another (rs ranging from .25 to .43, ps < .005 for all), and were averaged together to create a single composite score (M = 1.38, SD = 1.16).

Data Analysis

All analyses were performed in R version 2024.12.0-467 (R Core Team, 2024). To assess Aim 1 (degree to which caregivers differ in their discomfort with children’s caregiver-directed emotions), we used a nested ANOVA to examine differences among caregivers’ reported discomfort levels in response to children’s six caregiver-directed emotions: happiness, excitement, kindness, sadness, anger, and fear. Family ID variable was created and specified as a random effects variable to account for dependencies within families. For Aim 2 (associations between discomfort with different discrete emotions), we used Spearman correlations with cluster robust standard errors to assess the associations among discomfort with each different caregiver-directed emotion.

To evaluate Aim 3 (association between caregivers’ recalled history of emotion socialization and discomfort with children’s emotions), we used a series of regression models to test the degree to which caregivers reported remembered socialization from their own childhood was associated with caregivers’ reported discomfort of their own children’s caregiver-directed emotions. To start, we examined the frequency of which caregivers said they felt discomfort with each of their children’s caregiver-directed emotions. Frequency of feeling discomfort in response to positive caregiver-directed emotions was low (i.e., happiness, excitement, and kindness) and was low for fear (see Table 3 for frequency of endorsement). Given low frequency of endorsement (<25% endorsement), caregivers’ feelings of discomfort in response to children’s caregiver-directed happiness, excitement, and kindness were not included in analyses for Aim 3. Discomfort in response to caregiver-directed anger, sadness, and fear were moderately correlated (rs range from .44 to .68) with each other, and thus, we opted to aggregate these variables into a single discomfort to negative caregiver-directed emotions score to examine as a dependent variable. We examined demographic variables as potential covariates by examining the correlation between demographics and discomfort to negative caregiver-directed emotions. We specifically added caregiver and child age, caregiver gender, child sex, and income-to-needs as demographic covariates in our model given findings in the literature. Given our study’s sample of both female- and male-identifying caregivers, we covaried for the gender identity of the caregiver: caregiver gender interacts with the gender of their child in the context of emotion socialization (Chaplin et al., 2005). As we are studying both how caregivers are reacting to their children’s emotions and how caregiver’s own emotions were reacted to in childhood, caregiver gender is particularly relevant. Given this association between child sex and emotion socialization, we included child sex as a covariate (Chaplin et al., 2005). Additionally, income-to-needs is a proxy for a family’s available socioeconomic resources, which has been established as a relevant factor in understanding differences in caregiving and emotion socialization (e.g., discouragement of sadness, greater caregiver stress and decreased access to resources; O’neal & Magai, 2005, Duncan et al., 2017). None of our covariates except for child sex were related to discomfort to negative caregiver-directed emotions. However, we found a negative correlation between discomfort and child sex (r = −.16, p = .015) such that caregiver discomfort was lower with their female children compared to male children. Child sex was entered as a covariate in regression models.

Table 3.

Frequency of Caregivers’ Report of Discomfort with Children’s Emotions

	Likelihood of Feeling Discomfort with Children’s Emotions n (%)
Child Emotion	−3 (very unlikely)	−2	−1	0 (unsure)	1	2	3 (very likely)	Missinga
Happiness	229 (98%)	3 (1%)	0 (0%)	0 (0%)	0 (0%)	0 (0%)	2 (1%)	0 (0%)
Excitement	220 (94%)	9 (4%)	2 (1%)	0 (0%)	1 (0%)	1 (0%)	1 (0%)	0 (0%)
Kindness	218 (93%)	13 (6%)	3 (1%)	0 (0%)	0 (0%)	0 (0%)	0 (0%)	0 (0%)
Sadness	72 (31%)	43 (18%)	29 (12%)	2 (1%)	39 (17%)	28 (12%)	11 (5%)	10 (4%)
Anger	48 (21%)	28 (12%)	27 (12%)	1 (0%)	32 (14%)	21 (9%)	13 (6%)	64 (27%)
Fear	29 (12%)	11 (5%)	15 (6%)	0 (0%)	11 (5%)	17 (7%)	10 (4%)	141 (60%)

^aWhen caregivers reported that their child did not display a given emotion in response to something the caregiver did or said, no value was given.

For the main question for Aim 3, multiple regression was used to test the degree to which caregivers’ reported remembered process-oriented, outcome-oriented, and distraction responses were associated with discomfort with their children’s negative caregiver-directed emotions, adjusting for child sex. Remembered process-oriented, outcome-oriented, and distraction responses were all included in the same multiple regression model. Dependency within families (i.e., multiple caregivers reporting on the same child) was accounted for using cluster robust standard errors using the sandwich package (Zeileis et al., 2019).

Transparency and Openness

Data and code are openly available (https://osf.io/gvpfh/?view_only=e181bed2957847d987ad8b0803f90db9). The study’s design and analyses were not pre-registered.

Results

Primary Analyses

Aim 1.

The omnibus nested ANOVA was statistically significant (F(5, 1038) = 155.49, p < .001). Pair-wise contrasts between the emotions are presented in Table 4. There were no statistically significant differences within positive emotions (i.e., happiness, excitement, and kindness) or within negative emotions (i.e., sadness, anger, and fear). However, statistically significant differences were identified between each positive and each negative emotion, such that on average, participants reported feeling more discomfort with negative emotions compared to positive emotions. To adjust for Type 1 error across 15 comparisons, we used a Bonferroni correction (Emerson, 2020), and used a critical value of p < .003 for criterion for statistical significance.

Table 4.

Pair-wise contrasts for caregivers’ reported discomfort with children’s caregiver-directed emotions.

Comparison	Mean Difference	SE	Mean Difference Lower CI	Mean Difference Upper CI	Cohen’s d	p
Excitement vs. Happiness	0.06	0.12	−0.29	0.40	0.09	.997
Kindness vs. Happiness	0.02	0.12	−0.32	0.36	0.03	.999
Kindness vs. Excitement	−0.04	0.12	−0.38	0.30	0.08	.999
Anger vs. Sadness	0.21	0.13	−0.17	0.59	0.11	.597
Fear vs. Sadness	0.34	0.16	−0.13	0.80	0.18	.300
Fear vs. Anger	0.12	0.17	−0.36	0.61	0.07	.978
Sadness vs. Happiness	2.04	0.12	1.69	2.38	1.37	<.001
Anger vs. Happiness	2.25	0.13	1.87	2.62	1.49	<.001
Fear vs. Happiness	2.37	0.16	1.91	2.83	1.47	<.001
Sadness vs. Excitement	1.98	0.12	1.63	2.33	1.32	<.001
Anger vs. Excitement	2.19	0.13	1.82	2.57	1.44	<.001
Fear vs. Excitement	2.32	0.16	1.86	2.78	1.43	<.001
Sadness vs. Kindness	2.02	0.12	1.67	2.36	1.39	<.001
Anger vs. Kindness	2.23	0.13	1.86	2.61	1.51	<.001
Fear vs. Kindness	2.36	0.16	1.90	2.81	1.49	<.001

Note. Mean difference scores reflect first variable minus second variable. A positive score reflects that caregivers reported more discomfort for the first emotion listed in the first column. A critical value of .003 was used to adjust for multiple comparisons. All significant associations remained statistically significant after adjusting for multiple comparisons.

Aim 2.

Correlations between caregiver-directed emotions were examined and are presented in Table 5. Of note, caregiver reports of discomfort in response across children’s negative caregiver-directed emotions were all positively correlated with each other. However, reported discomfort to children’s displays of positive caregiver-directed emotions were not statistically significantly correlated with each other.

Table 5.

Spearman correlations between caregivers’ discomfort with their children’s emotions.

Discomfort with Children’s Emotion	1.	2.	3.	4.	5.
1. Happiness	--
2. Excitement	.09	--
3. Kindness	.07	.07	--
4. Sadness	.01	.24**	.10	--
5. Anger	−.02	.18*	.15	.68***	--
6. Fear	.01	.10	.06	.44***	.60***

Note.

^*p < .05.

^**p < .01.

^***p < .001.

Aim 3.

Remembered process-oriented responses were negatively correlated with remembered outcome-oriented responses (r = −.55, 95% CI [−.66, −.45], p < .001) and were positively correlated with remembered distraction (r = .32, 95% CI [.20, .45], p < .001). Remembered outcome-oriented was not statistically significantly related to remembered distraction (r = .09, 95% CI [−.03, .22], p = .156). We ran three regression models for each independent variable (i.e., process-oriented, outcome-oriented, and distract) with discomfort with negative caregiver-directed emotions as the dependent variable. Child sex (1 = female, 0 = male) was entered as a covariate in the model. Parents of girls, relative to boys, on average reported experiencing less discomfort with negative caregiver-directed emotions across all three models (βs range from −0.27 to −0.30, ps < .05). There was no association between remembered process-oriented responses and discomfort with own children’s negative caregiver-directed emotions (β = −0.10, 95% CI [−.23, .04], p = .150). Caregivers who recalled more outcome-oriented responses reported higher discomfort to children’s negative caregiver-directed emotions (Figure 1 top panel; β = 0.16, 95% CI [.03, .29], p = .018). Caregivers who recalled more distraction responses from their own childhood reported higher discomfort to children’s negative caregiver-directed emotions (Figure 1 bottom panel; β = 0.15, 95% CI [.01, .28], p = .032). Given that outcome-oriented and distraction responses were both related to caregivers’ discomfort with children’s caregiver-directed emotions, we tested a follow-up model where both caregiving behaviors were included as independent variables in association with discomfort with caregiver-directed emotions. In this model, both remembered outcome-oriented and distraction responses remained statistically significantly related to discomfort (outcome-oriented: β = 0.15, 95% CI [.02, .28], p = .027; distraction: β = 0.14, 95% CI [.01, .27], p = .041). Further, we included remembered process-oriented, outcome-oriented, and distraction responses in one model; only distraction remained statistically significantly associated with discomfort to negative emotions (β = 0.18, 95% CI [.03, .33], p = .019.

Figure 1. Associations between caregivers’ remembered caregiving experiences and discomfort with children’s negative emotions.

Note. Top panel: association between caregivers’ remembered outcome-oriented responses and discomfort with children’s negative emotions. Bottom panel: association between caregiver’s remembered distraction responses and discomfort with children’s negative emotions.

Caregiver reported confidence across recalled childhood experiences had a mean score of 75.74 (SD = 20.49, range = 9-100). To account for parents’ confidence in their report of their remembered caregiving, we first examined the correlation between confidence and mean discomfort and found no statistically significant association (r = −.07, 95% CI [−.20, .06], p = .315). Additionally, we conducted an additional model adjusting for an individual’s level of confidence and found that confidence was not associated with discomfort (β = −0.06, 95% CI [−.21, .08], p = .365). Additionally, the results of the model with respect to remembered process-oriented, outcome-oriented, and distraction were unchanged when confidence was included in the model.

Secondary Analyses.

To examine the differences between our assessment of caregivers reports of discomfort in response to children’s caregiver-directed negative emotions compared to caregivers’ discomfort in relation to children’s general negative emotions, we examined a subset of the sample who completed both the CAVE measure and the CCNES (n = 142). CCNES discomfort was calculated using three specific items from the CCNES scale that directly assessed internal feelings of discomfort. CCNES discomfort was not statistically significantly correlated with CAVE discomfort score (r = .08, 95% CI [−.04, .21], p = .330).

We repeated the analyses conducted to test Aim 3 specifically examining the associations between remembered caregiving behaviors (process-oriented, outcome-oriented, and distraction) and CCNES discomfort. Caregivers who recalled more process-oriented responses from their own childhood were less likely to report feeling discomfort in response to the three CCNES items (β = −0.21, 95% CI [−.39, −.02], p = .027). Caregivers who recalled more outcome-oriented responses from their own childhood were marginally more likely to feel discomfort in response to the three CCNES items (β = 0.17, 95% CI [−.01, .35], p = .066). There was no association between remembered distraction and feelings of discomfort in response to the CCNES items (β = 0.07, 95% CI [−.11, .26], p = .442).

Lastly, to examine the potential specificity of the association between remembered caregiving and discomfort with children’s negative emotions generally and those that are caregiver-directed, we included CCNES discomfort as a covariate in examining the associations between remembered caregiving and CAVE discomfort. Remembered process-oriented responses were not associated with discomfort with own children’s negative emotions, after accounting for CCNES mean discomfort (β = −0.04, 95% CI [−.21, .13], p = .650). The lack of association is consistent with the original findings from Aim 3. Caregivers who recalled more outcome-oriented responses reported higher discomfort to children’s negative emotions even after accounting for CCNES mean discomfort (β = 0.19, 95% CI [.01, .36], p = .039). This association is consistent with the original findings from Aim 3. However, remembered distraction was no longer statistically significantly associated with caregiver focused discomfort when CCNES was included in the model (β = 0.17, 95% CI [−.01, .34], p = .064).

Discussion

In the current study, we examined caregiver discomfort with children’s caregiver-directed emotions in a sample of 234 parents (caregivers) of preschool-aged children. There are four main findings from this study. First, we found that children’s negative caregiver-directed emotions were, on average, more likely met with caregiver discomfort relative to positive caregiver-directed emotions. Second, in terms of individual differences, caregiver reports of discomfort to their children’s caregiver-directed anger and sadness were positively correlated. This was not true of children’s positive caregiver-directed emotions. Third, we found that caregivers’ reported experiences during their own childhood were related to levels of discomfort in response to their own children’s negative caregiver-directed emotions. Specifically, caregivers who remembered more outcome-oriented socialization behaviors (e.g., being asked to stop expressing their emotion) and distraction from their caregivers were more likely to experience discomfort with their own children’s negative caregiver-directed emotions. Fourth, we found that the associations between remembered outcome-oriented caregiving experiences and caregivers’ discomfort towards children’s negative caregiver-directed emotions held above and beyond the associations with caregiver discomfort in response to children’s general negative emotions. Taken together, results suggest that there is likely an association between children’s negatively valanced caregiver-directed emotions to caregiver discomfort, as well as a link between remembered outcome-oriented caregiving with increased discomfort as a caregiver.

How do reported levels of caregiver discomfort vary based off their child’s emotions?

Findings from this study support the hypothesized positive relation between negative child emotionality towards a caregiver and caregiver discomfort. Literature consistently links caregiver discomfort with adolescent children’s positive emotions with caregiving behaviors and traits (e.g., lack of encouragement, less emotion knowledge and regulation; (Mazzone & Nader-Grosbois, 2017; Yap et al., 2008). Consistent with previous work, we found, on average, caregivers reported feeling more discomfort around their children’s caregiver-directed emotions when the emotions were negative, versus when children expressed positive emotions. Previous literature highlights a consistent story wherein negative emotionality is linked to negative caregiving emotions, such as distress, anger, and frustration (Fabes et al., 2002; Feng et al., 2008; Wu et al., 2017). Thus, our findings follow a similar pattern in which child expression of negative, but not positive, emotions are associated with caregiver discomfort.

When examining relations between emotion groups on an individual level, we found that caregiver discomfort to their children’s discrete negative caregiver-directed emotions (i.e., anger, sadness, and fear) was positively associated with each other. However, we did not find that any specific negative caregiver-directed emotion elicited significantly greater levels of discomfort, on average, than others. These findings suggest that valence of those caregiver-directed emotions may matter more than discrete emotion categories, particularly within negative emotions. Additionally, these results run counter to the literature that identifies children’s anger as more salient than other negative emotions in producing distress in caregivers (Corapci et al., 2012; Snyder et al., 2003).

It is important to recognize a number of factors that might explain the divergence in the literature. First, when reporting on their children’s negative caregiver-directed emotions, caregivers endorsed child fear much less than anger or sadness. In context, this finding indicates that caregivers in the study reported their child was afraid of them much less commonly than their child was sad or angry at them, which suggests our study does not include many caregivers who frighten their children. As such, there may be more individual differences in discomfort that are not being captured in this model as anger and sadness constituted most reports of discomfort. Secondly, the CAVE survey assesses responses to children’s emotions expressed towards the caregiver (e.g., your child is sad because of something that you did or said). It is possible that child anger and child sadness elicited because of something a caregiver has done may result in a different response than anger and sadness elicited by exogenous factors.

Counter to our expectations, we did not find that caregiver discomfort with children’s positive caregiver-directed emotions was positively correlated to one another. It is important to note that, in our study, on average, caregiver reports of discomfort were very low overall when it came to responding to children’s positive caregiver-directed emotions. With these low levels of endorsed discomfort, drawing clear conclusions about how discomfort intersects with positive caregiver-directed emotions is difficult. However, these results do fall in line with the existing narrative in emotion socialization literature that children’s negative caregiver-directed emotions tend to carry greater weight in impacting caregivers’ cognitions.

Regarding caregiver discomfort across emotions, no single emotion is associated with discomfort reports from more than half of caregivers. Although sadness and anger are linked to the highest rates of reported caregiver discomfort, these emotions still donť correspond to widespread discomfort reports among caregivers overall. In fact, within anger and sadness, other caregiver emotions may be more prevalent than discomfort (e.g., guilt in reaction to child sadness). For positive emotions, caregivers’ endorsement of positive emotions (e.g., feeling excited or happy) are more frequent than the endorsement of discomfort. To understand this distribution of caregiver emotions, it is critical to consider the adaptiveness of certain emotions in context. For example, in reaction to their child’s caregiver-directed sadness, it may be adaptive for a caregiver to experience an emotion such as guilt, permitting they are not experiencing that guilt in excess (Dix, 1991). On the other hand, discomfort may present a less adaptive emotional reaction to children’s emotions, such as caregiver-directed sadness or happiness. Previous findings show that caregiver’s discomfort surrounding negative caregiver-directed emotions is positively associated with outcome-oriented (i.e., walking away from the child and telling the child to stop when displaying distress) and distraction behaviors, whereas more adaptive caregiver emotions for the context (i.e., guilt, sadness) showed a positive association with process-oriented behaviors (e.g., holding their child and comforting them; Bailes et al., 2023). Additionally, experiencing this discomfort may be most prevalent in caregivers who experienced unsupportive emotion socialization in childhood. As such, it makes sense that discomfort is not as highly endorsed by caregivers as other adaptive emotional reactions.

Our analyses revealed patterns suggesting some caregivers may experience trait-level discomfort across their children’s emotions, regardless of the specific emotion being expressed. As shown in Table 5, caregivers who reported discomfort with their children’s excitement also tended to report greater discomfort with their children’s sadness (r = .24) and anger (r = .18). This finding suggests two potential patterns of caregiver discomfort: some caregivers may experience discomfort only with specific emotions or emotion categories (such as negative emotions), while others may experience heightened discomfort across all emotions their children express. Due to our limited sample size and the low frequency of reported discomfort with positive emotions, we cannot conduct person-level analyses to fully distinguish between emotion-specific and trait-level discomfort patterns. This distinction warrants investigation in future research.

How do remembered experiences of caregiving affect caregivers’ discomfort with children’s negative emotions?

We found that caregivers’ experience with emotion socialization from their own childhood was related to their levels of discomfort with their own children’s negative caregiver-directed emotions. Specifically, caregivers who recalled more outcome-oriented and distraction from their own primary caregiver were more likely to feel discomfort with their own children’s negative caregiver-directed emotions. Experiences with caregiving are linked to one’s own caregiving behaviors (Leerkes et al., 2020). There is evidence supporting the idea that one mechanism for the intergenerational transmission of caregiving behaviors is through caregivers’ cognitions and emotions surrounding their children’s emotions (Powell et al., 2014). Our study adds support to this body of literature, suggesting that caregivers who recalled having memories of their caregivers engaging in outcome-oriented behaviors (e.g., asking them to stop, walking away from them) when they expressed negative emotions as a child were more likely to feel discomfort in response to their child’s caregiver-directed anger, sadness, and fear. These findings are important in building on literature, identifying the interplay between discomfort with children’s caregiver-directed emotions and previous caregiving experiences, and results in implications for emotion socialization.

A similar pattern of effects emerged when examining distraction as a caregiving behavior. Historically, distraction has been considered a supportive emotion socialization behavior (Eisenberg et al., 1998; Fabes et al., 2002), however, using the Circle of Security (Powell et al., 2014) framework for emotion socialization, distraction from the child’s emotion is an example in with the caregiver is not “being with” the child in their feelings. By disrupting a child’s emotion processing, distracting a child from their emotions functions to minimize a child’s emotions (Housman et al., 2018). However, limited research exists on the role of distraction specifically in relation to children’s emotional outcomes. This is an important direction for future work examine whether the (regular) use of distraction is associated with a child’s emotional development. We did not find any evidence that recalled process-oriented caregiving predicted caregiver discomfort levels, which falls in line with literature suggesting positive caregiving experiences may not be as salient as negative experiences in socializing emotions (Calkins et al., 2001; Leerkes et al., 2020).

Specificity of Socialization Responses

Caregivers’ emotion socialization responses to their children’s negative emotions may differ based on the context of children’s negative emotions. The current study aimed to examine the specificity of caregivers’ discomfort in response to their children’s negative emotions that were caregiver directed compared to general negative emotions. We found no statistically significant correlations between caregivers’ discomfort with caregiver-directed negative emotions and caregiver discomfort to children’s general negative emotions, suggesting that these two types of children’s emotions may be unique constructs. These results fall in line with literature linking emotional expressions directed at oneself as particularly distressing (Molho et al., 2017), highlighting children’s caregiver-directed emotions as an important and distinct construct with unique impacts on caregivers’ feelings of discomfort. Additionally, results revealed that caregivers’ remembered experiences with their own caregiving may be differentially associated with discomfort to contexts where the source of the emotion is unspecified or includes multiple difference sources versus caregiver-directed emotions. Specifically, discomfort to caregiver-directed negative emotions, but not general negative emotion, was related to caregivers recall of more outcome-oriented (e.g., caregiver walking away from their emotions) responses and distraction from their own childhood. These findings provide evidence that caregivers’ sources of discomfort or distress to their children’s specific emotional experiences may have different antecedents and add to earlier findings suggesting that children’s caregiver-directed emotions are distinctly separate from children’s emotions elicited by other contexts. Future research should examine how caregivers’ recalled experiences relate to their discomfort when children express emotions both across diverse contexts as well as specifically in response to the caregiver. This comparison, using the same set of emotions (sadness, anger, and fear), would help determine whether emotions directed at the caregiver have different impacts than when these same emotions are expressed in other contexts or in response to other people.

Limitations and Constraints on Generality

There are several limitations of this study. First, in recent work, emotion socialization has been shown to intersect with racial and/or ethnic socialization such that emotion socialization behaviors may differentially impact children’s development for members of minoritized groups compared to members of non-minoritized groups (Dunbar et al., 2017, 2022). For example, emotion socialization behaviors classified as non-supportive or negative behaviors (e.g., minimizing emotions) function differently on average for White and Black families (Perry et al., 2020), such that, in Black families relative to White families, negative child emotions (e.g., feeling hurt, feeling ashamed) were more likely to be met with non-supportive emotion socialization behaviors by caregivers. In the context of systemic racism and racial biases that directly impact the safety of members of minoritized groups, minimizing negative emotional expression may promote survival and reduce exposures to discrimination (Dunbar et al., 2017, 2022). Additionally, a recent meta-analysis discusses cultural differences in caregiving behaviors consistent with a process-orientated classification (e.g., mental state language) in non-WEIRD (e.g., Indian immigrant) cultures, as children’s misbehavior may not be attributed to a negative mental states (e.g., frustration; Ip et al., 2023). The literature reviewed for this study was largely collected in Australia, the United States, or countries in Western Europe, highlighting a greater need for understanding of emotion socialization across cultures. Studying these questions in samples with greater heterogeneity would be useful for better understanding the generalizability of the links between caregiver discomfort and child emotions.

Second, our study uses single-reporter, retrospective reports on recalled caregiving experiences. Retrospective reports of early life experiences are commonly less accurate than assessing current experiences given errors in recall and are more likely to be affected a caregiver’s general emotional state and interpretation of experiences (Hardt & Rutter, 2004). Further, retrospective reports may be incorrectly attributed to different development stages, and individuals may inaccurately remember experiences from earlier or later stages of development as occurring during the probed developmental window. Prospective and retrospective memories are modestly correlated during this early childhood window (k=.31), as compared to middle childhood (k=.45; Nivison et al., 2024), suggesting that memory recall during this period may be less accurate to this specific age range than later ages. Additionally, there are biases that may be attributed to the single-reporter nature of the data: the significance of intergenerational caregiving patterns often are impacted by the person reporting on caregiving experiences (Buisman et al., 2020). Given the relative difficulty of collecting real-time data across generations, retrospective reports of early caregiving experiences are often accepted as valid given correlations with caregiver and sibling retrospective reports (Brewin et al., 1993; Harlaar et al., 2008). An important next step in this line of research needs to utilize multiple reporter or other methods – such as long-term longitudinal studies (Poulton et al., 2015) or analysis of home-videos (Costanzo et al., 2015; Tariq et al., 2019) – to minimize shared method variance from the same reporter.

Third, there are some limitations in our measurement of caregiver emotion socialization. For one, our measurement differs from other methods, such as the CCNES, in probing caregivers about children’s emotions using general prompts instead of vignettes. Although this method allows for greater generalizability across both participants and emotional expressions, the measurement provides less specificity across reporters. Thus, we may be limited in interpreting contextual elements of children’s emotional expressions that may impact caregiver cognitions.

Fourth, we had limited endorsed discomfort from caregivers when responding to positive emotions and fear as a discrete negative emotion, which limits our ability to detect effects driven by fear and positive emotions. It is possible that more sensitive measures of discomfort could identify different associations between caregivers’ caregiving experiences and discomfort with negative emotions (e.g., integrating physiological assessments with self-report). Caregivers were likely to say that their children did not display caregiver-directed fear (about 60%). While we hypothesize that current caregiving behaviors will influence the preschoolers’ own emotional functioning, future research using a longitudinal sample can better establish the relation between discomfort, caregiving behavior, and children’s emotion functioning skills (e.g., emotion regulation, emotion knowledge).

Conclusion

Our study examined the relation between caregiver discomfort and children’s emotions, finding that, on average, caregivers were more likely to experience discomfort in response to negatively valanced emotions, and that caregivers who experienced discomfort in one type of discrete negative emotion were more likely to experience discomfort in another discrete negative emotion. In addition, we found that caregivers with recalled childhood caregiving experiences of outcome-oriented caregiving and distraction during their emotional expressions were more likely to be a part of the high discomfort group of caregivers when responding to their child’s negative emotions (i.e., anger, sadness). The current findings build on emotion socialization literature, identifying discomfort as a potential mechanism through which intergenerational emotion socialization may occur.