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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2026 Jun 6.
Published before final editing as: Dev Psychol. 2026 Jun 4:10.1037/dev0002210. doi: 10.1037/dev0002210

Delineating Specificity in Parental Responses to Children’s Distress: Associations with Neighborhood Risk and Children’s Socioemotional Outcomes

Leena R Twal 1, Melissa L Sturge-Apple 1, Patrick T Davies 1
PMCID: PMC13240652  NIHMSID: NIHMS2164793  PMID: 42241105

Abstract

The current longitudinal, multi-method, and multi-informant study addresses major gaps in emotion socialization literature by examining parental responses to children’s distress, identifying how neighborhood risk affects emotion socialization strategies and children’s socioemotional outcomes. Specifically, we test the direct and indirect effects of neighborhood risk on children’s anxiety and behavioral problems over time through mothers’ and fathers’ use of four distinct distress-response strategies. The sample includes 220 parent-child triads ranging from a diverse socioeconomic and racial background. Children had a mean age of 3 at timepoint one. Responses to Children’s Distress were observed during an interaction task, and analyses utilize Expressive Encouragement (EE), Emotion-Focused Reactions (EFR), Problem-Focused Reactions (PFR), and Minimizing-Supportive Reactions (MSR) scales. Parallel mediation SEMs were tested. Neighborhood risk was associated with EFR (βs= −.23, ps<.001), PFR (βs = −.36 – −.37, ps < .001), and MSR (βs = −.23, ps < .001) for mothers, and with EFR (βs = −.15, ps = .03) and PFR (βs = −.21, ps = .002 – .003) for fathers. Mothers’ use of EFR (β=−.166, p=.002) and PFR (β=−.212, p=.001) behaviors were associated with lower levels of anxiety, and mediation paths were significant. Fathers’ use of EE behaviors predicted higher levels of behavioral problems (β=.168, p=.008). Findings highlight how parents’ reaction strategies differentially impact children’s socioemotional outcomes over time, indicating gendered contributions to parents’ influences on children and contributing greater insight into the interaction between neighborhood contexts and the family system.

Keywords: Emotion Socialization, Parental Responses to Distress, Neighborhood risk, Mothers and Fathers, Child Anxiety, Child Behavioral Problems

INTRODUCTION

The development of children’s emotion regulation is a critical task with implications for health and well-being across the lifespan (Eisenberg et al., 1999; Gottman et al., 1996; Zimmer-Gembeck et al., 2022). Early in life, parents are one of the primary drivers of children’s emotion regulatory capacity. Parental emotion socialization practices encompass a variety of behaviors used to help children acquire skills on how to think about, express, and regulate their emotions (Eisenberg et al., 2001). Socialization behaviors can range from direct, explicit teachings about types of emotions or regulation strategies to indirect displays of beliefs or behaviors that children learn through observation (Thompson, 1994). An important feature of emotion socialization is the way in which parents respond to their children’s emotions, namely negative emotions. Traditionally, these response strategies have been classified as either supportive or unsupportive emotion socialization behaviors (e.g. Sanders et al., 2015; Wong et al., 2009). However, in an effort to increase specificity within emotion socialization literature, the current study aims to unpack conventional classifications to identify and examine different socialization strategies that parents use in response to children’s negative emotions. Moreover, much of the extant literature on parent socialization of negative emotions utilizes global caregiving situations rather than focusing on specific domains in which parenting behaviors occur. To address this, the current study utilized an observational paradigm designed to elicit children’s emotional distress in response to threat, thereby situating socialization behaviors within the protection domain (Grusec & Davidov, 2010). Finally, embedding socialization behaviors within a broader contextual model, the current study explores how exposure to neighborhood risk impacts parental use of different socialization strategies. To this end, we utilized a contextual approach to interpreting parental use of specific distress-reaction behaviors within the context of the protection domain.

Parental Responses to Children’s Distress

When children exhibit negative emotionality, the way in which their parents respond offer children insight into the appropriateness of emotional displays or regulation strategies (Fabes et al., 2001; Grusec & Davidov, 2010). Supportive socialization behaviors include encouraging the expression of emotions, offering strategies for coping, helping the child to regulate, or comforting the child (Eisenberg et al., 2001; Nelson & Boyer; 2018). Parental use of supportive strategies has been linked with positive socioemotional outcomes in children including greater emotion regulation (Hurrell et al., 2015; Shaffer et al., 2012), increased understanding of emotions (Fabes et al., 2001; Bjørk et al., 2020), and pro-social behaviors (Hu et al., 2020). Conversely, nonsupportive behaviors include discouraging the child from expressing their negative emotions, punishing the child, and minimizing or invalidating their experiences and feelings (Eisenberg et al., 1999). Parental use of nonsupportive strategies has been associated with socioemotional problems in young children including externalizing symptoms (Fabes et al., 2001; Eisenberg et al., 2001), emotional dysregulation (Sanders et al., 2015), and anxiety (Zimmer-Gembeck et al., 2022).

While this classification of supportive versus nonsupportive responses has greatly contributed to the literature on parental socialization, grouping different response strategies into two general categories has had the unsurprising result of demonstrating overly broad associations with children’s ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ socioemotional development. There has been some research in which socialization behaviors were not grouped into general categories (e.g. Fabes et al., 2001; Hurrell et al., 2015). However, that literature has mostly focused on behaviors classified as unsupportive (e.g. punitive or minimizing reactions) and largely overlook supportive behavior strategies. To examine the developmental predictive utility of parental socialization of children’s negative emotions, the current study unpacks broad classifications of supportive and unsupportive practices by examining four specific conceptually defined emotion socialization behaviors: emotion-focused, problem-focused, expressive encouragement, and minimizing-supportive reactions. Moreover, not only have different strategies largely been lumped together in previous empirical research, but there has been a tacit assumption that these strategies apply universally across all parenting situations. Domain theories of parenting suggest that parental goals and socialization strategies may vary across different socialization contexts (Grusec, 2011). Given this, the present study applies the domain approach in examining specificity of parental socialization of children’s negative emotions within one distinct caregiving domain.

Domain Specificity of Emotional Socialization within the Protection Domain

Parental responses to children’s emotional distress have been widely studied though the administration of self-report measures where participants are asked to report on their response-behaviors in global settings (e.g. CCNES; Fabes et al., 1990). However, domain specificity conceptualizations propose that parenting behaviors serve different functions depending upon the context and socialization goals, delineating five distinct domains in early childhood that each serve individual functions of parenting behaviors (Grusec & Davidov, 2010). In line with this, the current study sought to evaluate socialization of negative emotions through examination of parental reactions to emotional distress within the protection domain. The protection domain encompasses aspects of caregiver-child relations that are triggered when cues of potential or real threat to the child are present (Grusec, 2011). Emotion socialization strategies within the protection domain include behaviors such as removing the stressor, soothing or comforting the child, or providing coping strategies (Grusec, 2011). Parents’ ability to appropriately assist their children’s regulation of negative emotions within the protection domain has ramifications for children’s development across the lifespan and, potentially, may also serve as a building block for children’s regulation of emotions in other socialization domains (Grusec & Davidov, 2010).

Grusec and Davidov (2010) propose that the quality of parental response strategies supports children’s abilities to self-regulate in reaction to external stressors or threats. Self-regulation consists of children’s ability to control both their emotional and behavioral responses to threats or stressors (Montroy et al., 2016). In young children, difficulties with self-regulation are largely manifested in anxious and distress behaviors, as well as overly hostile and aggressive behaviors (Cole et al., 1994; Eisenberg et al., 2017). Within the domain framework, the mechanism that links variation in parental protective strategies with children’s regulation is individual differences in children’s confidence in protection. Low levels of children’s confidence in parental protection are proposed to increase children’s anxiety and an inability to regulate their arousal in response to threat, which may increase behavioral problems over time (Grusec & Davidov, 2010). Therefore, the current study includes anxiety and behavioral problems as two outcomes of parental response strategies. Exploration of these interconnected child outcomes allow us to research how use of distinct parental response-strategies is related to children’s regulation while further embedding the current model within the protection domain.

Finally, the current study evaluates parental responses to children’s distress in the protection domain through administration of an observational paradigm specifically designed to activate the caregiving system through eliciting emotional distress of young children in response to a threat (Kochanska, 1995). Scholars have argued that parenting research should reduce the reliance on parent self-report measures, which are subject to greater distortion due to social desirability around caregiving, and have advocated for greater utilization of observational paradigms which target specific socialization contexts (Davies & Sturge-Apple, 2024; Sturge-Apple et al., 2017). Our use of a paradigm designed to activate parental protection through the introduction of a social threat (e.g., stranger) allows the current research to isolate and assess parental socialization behaviors within this domain.

Socialization within the Protection Domain in Neighborhood Contexts

A final goal of the current study is to examine parental socialization of children’s negative emotions in the protection domain within a broader contextual framework, specifically focusing on neighborhood risk. Neighborhood risk may amplify behaviors within the protection domain, as families living in high-risk contexts are exposed to additional stressors that may elicit threat-response behaviors from parents more often. Informed by the Integrative Model of Emotion Socialization (Dunbar et al., 2017), which embeds parental responses to negative emotions within ecological contexts, varying levels of neighborhood risk may predict parental use of distinct socialization behaviors that can differentially impact children’s outcomes. For example, Caughy & Franzini (2005) found that lower neighborhood social capital (defined as social cohesion and collective socialization) was associated with increased reports of yelling and threatening children as a discipline strategy. Al’Uqdah et al. (2015) found that fear of community violence was associated with decreased reporting of positive emotion socialization behaviors. Additionally, Sturge-Apple et al. (2017) found socioeconomic risk (compositing of income-to-needs ratio, maternal education, and neighborhood chaos) to be significantly related to a decrease in maternal sensitivity over time. Results like this underscore the importance of researching the impact of neighborhood context when researching caregiving behaviors.

As neighborhoods may encompass different things depending on researchers’ study aims and residents’ perceptions and lived experiences, it is important to define what is being operationalized. Constraining neighborhoods to census-tract data utilizing zip codes as boundaries allows for a clear and unambiguous method of measuring neighborhood risks associated with residents’ household income and access to government-funded resources. For example, using census-tract data, Urban et al. (2009) found that access to neighborhood resources was significantly associated with greater positive youth development, (composited of competence, confidence, social connections, etc.) and negatively associated with depression and externalizing outcomes. Nonetheless, a growing body of research (see Leventhal & Dupéré, 2019 for review) suggests that residents’ own perceptions of their neighborhoods serve as an equally important tool for measuring neighborhoods effects. In a comparative analysis studying impacts of objective versus subjective perceptions of neighborhoods, Zhang et al., (2019) found that participants’ subjective reports of neighborhood dimensions were more likely to influence mental health outcomes relative to objective reports. Given the complexity in neighborhood research, the current study uses a multi-informant approach when defining and studying neighborhood risk by utilizing both self-report questionnaires of participants’ perceptions of neighborhood dimensions as well as census-tract data to measure objective economic resource availability. Inclusion of neighborhoods into the proposed research model allows us to target the protection domain from not only a family-level, but at the contextual level as well.

Current Study

Guided by theories on domain-specificity of parenting and ecological models of socialization, the overarching goal of the current study is to explore the cascading impact of neighborhood risk on children’s adjustment directly and indirectly through parental distress-response strategies. Moreover, the current study aims to address several gaps in the literature on response strategies to children’s emotional distress. Specifically, this multi-method and longitudinal study seeks to circumvent constraints of “supportive” and “nonsupportive” categorization of response strategies by researching specific response behaviors: expressive encouragement (EE), emotion-focused reactions (EFR), problem-focused reactions (PFR), and minimizing-supportive reactions (MSR). Rather than relying on self-report measures of global caregiving strategies, we utilize a novel coding manual to research parental emotion socialization behaviors occurring within the protection domain. Furthermore, the current study explores the effect of these response strategies on children’s anxiety symptoms and behavioral problems. Longitudinal data collection and autoregressive analyses allow us to make inferences on the associations between response-strategies and developmental outcomes in children over time. Additionally, the current study explores use of parental socialization strategies within the background of neighborhood risk, further contextually embedding parental socialization behaviors within the protection domain. It is hypothesized that living in higher-risk neighborhoods may be associated with a decrease in EE and EFR and an increase in MSR. Due to a lack of previous research, no a priori hypotheses are made on effects of neighborhood risk on PFR.

Finally, the current study expands the prevalence of research on mothers to include fathers in analyses as well. The inclusion of both mothers and fathers in these analyses allows us to explore differential effects parents have on their children’s socioemotional development. Some prior research suggests mothers use greater levels of EE, EFR, and PFR reactions than fathers (e.g. Eisenberg et al., 1999), but this is unclear with respect to the protection domain. It is also unknown whether associations with children’s outcomes will look similarly for mothers and fathers. One study found that mothers’, but not fathers’, supportive response behaviors were associated with greater emotion regulation skills in children (Hurrell et al., 2015). Others have found that parents’ supportive (Davidov & Grusec, 2006) and nonsupportive reaction behaviors (Engle & McElwain, 2011) operate similarly in predicting child outcomes. It is hypothesized that mothers’ reaction strategies will significantly affect children’s anxiety and behavioral problems. Mixed findings on effects of fathers’ socialization behaviors make it unclear if and how fathers’ reaction behaviors will impact children’s anxiety and behavioral problems. However, it is possible that this pattern may look similar for fathers. As the delineation of distinct reaction strategies measured through observational assessment is novel, no a priori hypotheses are made about gendered effects of specific reaction-behaviors on children’s outcomes.

METHODS

Participants & Procedures

Data was drawn from a larger project studying interparental conflict and spillover processes onto child developmental outcomes and the family system. Thus, the current study constitutes a secondary analysis, with an original sample of 235 family triads predetermined based off the original study’s aims and power analyses to detect effects. However, the current project focuses on families who were observationally coded in the parenting task, making the sample size for current analyses 220. Families were recruited from a mid-sized northeast city in the United States through Head Start programs, early child-care centers, and online. Families were deemed eligible if (a) the target child was between 35–49 months old and both parents were at least 18; (b) at least one parent was the biological parent of the child; (c) the two parents and target child lived together in the same house for at least 1 year; (d) the target child was not diagnosed with any developmental disabilities; and (e) families were fluent in English. Families completed three study visits one year apart. At each study visit, the family triad completed a 2.5 to 3-hour study visit. The visit room was decorated to resemble a living room and equipped to record observational tasks. Interparental and parent-child interaction tasks took place in the visit room. Parents completed surveys alone in separate questionnaire rooms. Families were financially compensated at each visit, and children received a small toy. Retention was 97.3% at visit 2 and 91.9% at visit 3. The current analyses use data from the first and final study visits. For ease of interpretability, we refer to these timepoints as Wave 1 and Wave 2 in the manuscript.

Both parents completed demographic questionnaires. At W1, Children’s mean age was 2.97 years (SD = .38; 2–4). On average, mothers were 33.6 years old (SD=5.23; 20–48) and fathers were 36.1 years old (SD=6.29; 19–62). Mothers identified as White (62.7%), Black (20.9%), Biracial (7.7%), or other (8.7%). Additionally, 13.2% of mothers identified as Hispanic or Latina. Fathers identified as White (55%), Black (23.2%), Biracial (8.2%), or other (13.7%), with 13.6% of fathers also identifying as Hispanic or Latino. Mothers reported their child’s race as White (55.9%), Black (21.4%), Biracial (16.8%), or other (5.9%), as well as 17.3% reporting their child’s ethnicity as Hispanic or Latinx. All but one mother identified as the target child’s biological mother. 90.5% of fathers identified as the target child’s biological father, with approximately 6% identifying as stepfather and 3% as the live-in boyfriend of the target child’s biological mother. Median household income fell within the $55,000-$75,000 range. See Table 1 for a full report of demographic information.

Table 1.

Demographic Characteristics

N M SD Min Max
Maternal Age 235 33.56 5.31 20 48
Paternal Age 235 36.0 6.44 19 62
Child Age 235 2.97 .38 2 4
N %
Child Sex Male 105 44.7
Female 130 55.3
Maternal Race White 147 62.6
Black 50 21.3
Bi/Multiracial 18 7.7
Other 20 8.6
Paternal Race White 130 55.3
Black 56 23.8
Bi/Multiracial 18 7.7
Other 31 13.2
Child Race White 132 56.2
Black 50 21.3
Bi/Multiracial 38 16.2
Other 15 6.4
Maternal Ethnicity Hispanic/Latina 32 13.6
Not 195 83.0
Missing 8 3.4
Paternal Ethnicity Hispanic/Latino 30 12.8
Not 197 83.8
Missing 8 3.4
Child Ethnicity Hispanic/Latinx 41 17.4
Not 186 79.1
Missing 8 3.4
Household Income <$6,000 29 12.3
$6,000 – $11,999 12 5.1
$12,000 – $16,999 10 4.3
$17,000 – $22,999 9 3.8
$23,000 – $28,999 9 3.8
$29,000 – $39,999 21 8.9
$40,000 – $54,999 26 11.1
$55,000 – $74,999 38 16.2
$75,000 – $99,999 29 12.3
$100,000 – $124,999 24 10.2
>$125,000 28 11.9
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Age is reported in years. Income is reported in USD.

Transparency and Openness

In compliance with the Transparency and Openness (TOP) Guidelines (Nosek et al., 2015), all exclusion criteria, sample size determination, and study materials are reported. The present study was reviewed and approved by the University of Rochester’s Institutional Review Board. Given that data collection is currently ongoing, the data, analytic code, and study materials are not publicly available at this time. This study was not preregistered.

Measures

Wave 1 Neighborhood Risk

Mothers completed the Neighborhood Organization Affiliation Assessment-Revised questionnaire (NOAA-R, Knight et al., 2008), rating various neighborhood descriptors on a 4-point scale of Strongly disagree to Strongly agree. The two subscales Neighborhood Chaos and Neighborhood Instability were used in this assessment of neighborhood risk. Neighborhood Chaos consists of 14-items related to problems in the neighborhood (e.g. “there is graffiti on buildings and walls” or “homes or businesses get broken in to”) (Cronbach α = .94). Neighborhood Instability consists of 5-items related to residential turnover in the neighborhood (e.g. “People don’t live in this neighborhood for long” or “Most of the people in this neighborhood are renters”) (Cronbach α = .88).

Additionally, access to Economic Resources was assessed using census-tract indicators drawn from the Child Opportunity Index 2.0 (COI 2.0; “DiversityDataKids”, 2023). COI 2.0 data was linked to de-identified families by associating their study ID to their census tract zip code using geocoding methods in ArcGIS software (ESRI, Inc., Redlands, California). The Economic Resources composite utilizes 8 indicators: local poverty rate (reverse-scored), the percentage of households receiving public assistance (reverse scored), the percentage of homeowners, the percentage of individuals 16 and over in high-skilled employment, median household income, employment rate, availability of local jobs (operationalized as average commute length), and percentage of single-headed households (reverse-scored). Though the original Economic Resources composite is scored with higher levels indicating greater access to resources, composite scores were reversed such that higher levels indicate less access to economic resources.

Wave 1 Parental Reactions to Children’s Distress

Parents’ reactions to their children’s distress were assessed observationally during a parent-child interaction task based off of Kochanska’s (1995) Clown Task. In this task, parent-child dyads were sitting alone in the visit room when a research assistant (RA), dressed in either a Clown or Garbage Bag costume, entered the room for approximately 90-seconds standing in various spots around the room. During this interval, the RA did not speak to or interact with the dyad. Mothers and fathers participated separately with their child, and the costume the RA was wearing was counterbalanced, such that the child would not see the same costume twice. Prior to the RA entering the room, parents were instructed that “someone” would be entering the room and to act as they typically would, but were not informed of details regarding the costume. This task was designed to be confusing and elicit discomfort.

These interactions were video recorded and coded using subscales from a novel coding system created for this task meant to capture parental responses to children’s expression of negative emotions (Twal & Sturge-Apple, 2023), based off of Fabes et al.’s Coping with Children’s Negative Emotions Scale (CCNES; Fabes et al., 1990). Subscales used for the current project are Initial Child Distress (ICD), Expressive Encouragement (EE), Emotion-Focused Reactions (EFR), Problem-Focused Reactions (PFR), and Minimizing-Supportive Reactions (MSR). ICD measures the child’s initial distress level for the first 10-seconds of the task on a 3-point scale (0 = not characteristic to 2 = moderately characteristic). EE measures the extent to which parents validate their child’s negative affect and encourage them to express negative feelings. Behaviors range from asking the child what’s wrong or how they’re feeling to telling them it’s okay to feel or express negative emotions. EFR measures the extent to which parents respond with behaviors meant to help the child feel better and alleviate distress. This includes speaking with a gentle tone, providing comfort or support, or engaging in emotion-coping strategies. PFR measures the degree to which parents help the child “solve” what is causing their distress, which in this task is seeing the RA as a threat. Behaviors include directing the child’s attention towards the RA or encouraging them to interact with the RA. MSR measures the extent to which parents minimize the situation or the threat that their child is perceiving. This includes joking about the RA or telling the child that this is “silly”, “funny” or “not scary”. Rather than the traditional, broad “minimizing” subscale traditionally utilized in the CCNES (Fabes et al., 1990), minimizing-supportive reactions serve a different function, as it targets minimizing the stressor itself and not the child or their feelings. These four reactions are measured on a 9-point scale from (1 = not at all characteristic to 9 = mainly characteristic). Two independent coders scored parents on each of the subscales, and reliability was calculated for approximately 25% of videos, with intraclass correlation coefficients acceptable for mothers (.73 – .86) and fathers (.72 – .95).

Wave 1 and 2 Child Outcomes

Additionally, mothers completed the MacArthur Health and Behavior Questionnaire (HBQ-P 1.0; Albow et al., 1999) at both visits. The Separation Anxiety (Cronbach α = .63; .77) and Overanxious (Cronbach α = .71; .80) subscales were averaged to create a general measure of Anxiety symptoms in children. Example items from each subscale include “Worries about doing better at things” and “Avoids being alone”. The Conduct Problems (Cronbach α = .68; .76) and Overt Hostility (Cronbach α = .60; .70) subscales were averaged to create a general Behavior Problems measure in children. Items from each subscale include “Disobedient at school” and “Taunts or teases other children”. Responses are measured on a 2-point Likert scale of (0 = never or not true to 2 = often or very true).

Analytic Plan

Initial descriptive analyses were conducted in SPSS v.26 to compare mean differences of socialization strategies and test group differences between mothers and fathers. In order to examine direct and indirect effects of neighborhood risk on children’s emotional outcomes through parental responses to their children’s distress, parallel mediation structural equation models (SEM) were tested in Mplus V.8.6 (Muthén & Muthén, 2017) using the maximum likelihood with robust standard errors (MLR) estimator. A measurement model was specified to test the latent variable Neighborhood Risk. After showing adequate loadings, subsequent structural models were tested using the latent variable as a direct and indirect predictor to the child outcomes. Two separate models were run, one for each outcome, such that Child Anxiety and Child Behavioral Problems were tested independently of one another. In order to account for mothers and fathers nested within family, the data was clustered by family ID, and models were grouped by parent gender. Although they were tested in the same model, results for mothers and fathers are presented separately for clarity. To test mediation significance, asymmetric confidence intervals were tested in RMediation (Tofighi & MacKinnon, 2011).

All analyses controlled for child gender. To reduce risk of multicollinearity that would result from strong associations with neighborhood risk, household income was not included in the model. To reduce error and account for some variance in parents’ response strategies, children’s Initial Distress Levels at the start of the behavioral task were controlled for. An autoregressive path was specified for each outcome variable, such that analyses controlled for levels measured at W1. Model fit was evaluated using the comparative fit index (CFI), root mean square error of approximation (RSMEA), and standardized root mean square residual (SRMR). A CFI value greater than .95, RSMEA value less than .06, and an SRMR value less than .05 are considered to indicate a good model fit (Yu & Muthén, 2002).

RESULTS

To examine mean differences between use of EE, EFR, PFR, and MSR behaviors, a multivariate repeated measures analysis of variances (ANOVA) was tested in SPSS. As the sphericity assumption was violated (p < .001), the Greenhouse-Guisser correction was used to determine significance. Results indicated that there was a significant difference between the four strategies (F(2.2, 956.8) = 236.68, p < .001). To compare overall mean differences between the four reaction strategies, simple contrasts were tested with each strategy set as the reference group. Parents significantly used lower levels of EE compared to EFR (F(1, 436) = 214.51, p < .001) and PFR (F(1, 436) = 212.42, p < .001), and higher levels of EE compared to MSR (F(1, 436) = 100.34, p < .001). Additionally, parents used significantly lower levels of MSR compared to EFR (F(1, 436) = 490.34, p < .001) and PFR (F(1, 436) = 627.09, p < .001). Finally, there was no significant difference between mean levels of EFR and PFR (F(1,436) = 1.94, p = .17). To test differences between mothers’ and fathers’ use of the various reaction strategies, a one-way ANOVA was run in SPSS. There was no significant difference between parents’ use of EE behaviors (F(1, 436) = .95, p = .33). However, mothers had significantly higher levels of EFR (F(1, 436) = 9.93, p = .002), PFR (F(1, 436) = 7.23, p = .007), and MSR (F(1, 436) = 4.86, p = .03) compared to fathers. See Tables 2 and 3 for a full summary of descriptive data and correlations.

Table 2.

Descriptive Results

N M SD Min Max
W1 Neigh. Chaos 229 21.31 7.9 14 49.0
W1 Neigh. Instability 230 8.70 3.80 5 19.0
W1 Economic Res. 232 .31 1.40 −2.17 2.81
W1 Maternal ICD 219 .72 .62 .0 2
W1 Maternal EE 219 2.38 1.41 1 7.0
W1 Maternal EFR 219 4.10 2.03 1 9
W1 Maternal PFR 219 4.29 2.24 1 9
W1 Maternal MSR 219 1.65 .98 1 6.0
W1 Paternal ICD 218 .63 .61 .0 2
W1 Paternal EE 218 2.25 1.31 1 6.0
W1 Paternal EFR 218 3.53 1.75 1 9
W1 Paternal PFR 218 3.75 1.95 1 8.0
W1 Paternal MSR 218 1.45 .86 1 6.0
W1 Child Anxiety 231 2.62 2.04 .0 14.0
W1 Child Beh. Pr. 231 1.57 1.43 .0 6.43
W2 Child Anxiety 203 3.21 2.77 .0 16.0
W2 Child Beh. Pr. 203 1.52 1.62 .0 7.5
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neigh. = neighborhood; inst. = instability; res. = resources; ICD = initial child distress; EE = expressive encouragement; EFR = emotion-focused reaction; PFR = problem- focused reaction; MSR = minimizing-supportive reaction; beh. pr. = behavioral problems

Table 3.

Correlations

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
1. Child Gender –
2. W1 Neigh. Chaos .011 –
3. W1 Neigh. Inst. .031 .722*** –
4. W1 Economic Res. −.045 .582*** .568*** –
5. W1 Maternal ICD −.004 .06 .134* −.057 –
6. W1 Maternal EE −.003 .01 .123 .04 .225*** –
7. W1 Maternal EFR −.043 −.171* −.168* −.191** .182** .102 –
8. W1 Maternal PFR −.011 −.303*** −.279*** −.339*** −.087 .046 −.287*** –
9. W1 Maternal MSR −.110 −.214** −.174** −.180** −.002 .142* −.02 .285*** –
10. W1 Paternal ICD .027 −.069 −.021 −.07 .274*** .194** .156* −.066 .005 –
11. W1 Paternal EE −.032 −.054 −.031 −.13 .161* .056 .017 .027 −.042 .30*** –
12. W1 Paternal EFR .00 −.077 −.153* −.222*** .192** −.003 .185** −.04 −.014 .258*** .262*** –
13. W1 Paternal PFR −.044 −.158* −.141* −.258*** −.073 .00 −.081 .244*** .181** −.088 .064 −.059 –
14. W1 Paternal MSR −.026 .03 .044 −.012 .001 −.043 −.019 .003 .172** −.028 −.04 −.048 .24*** –
15. W1 Child Anxiety −.065 .119 .069 .025 .15* .066 .002 .025 −.086 .088 −.06 −.022 −.044 −.093 –
16. W1 Child Beh. Pr. .198** .187** .16* .078 −.038 −.07 .013 −.09 −.053 .065 −.041 −.041 −.124 −.022 .172** –
17. W2 Child Anxiety .044 −.046 −.153* −.107 .018 .10 −.036 −.017 .007 .096 −.031 .021 −.063 −.026 .529*** .116 –
18. W2 Child Beh. Pr. .276*** .106 .082 .027 −.031 −.02 .004 −.047 −.087 .027 .108 −.061 −.099 −.055 .113 .577*** .241**
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neigh. = neighborhood; inst. = instability; res. = resources; ICD = initial child distress; EE = expressive encouragement; EFR = emotion-focused reaction; PFR = problem- focused reaction; MSR = minimizing-supportive reaction; beh. pr. = behavioral problems.

*

p ≤ .05

**

p ≤ .01

***

p ≤ .001

SEM analyses utilized 20 random starts to address potential issues with local minima and nonconvergence. Mplus provided a single solution selected on the best fit function value among the random starts. All models converged successfully. Separate path models were tested for each outcome, and results are presented one model at a time. Across both child outcome models, pathways between neighborhood risk and parenting were relatively stable. For mothers, neighborhood risk was significantly associated with use of EFR (βs = −.23, ps < .001), PFR (βs = −.36 – −.37, ps < .001), and MSR (βs = −.23, ps < .001). For fathers, risk was significantly associated with use of EFR (βs = −.15, ps = .03) and PFR (βs = −.21, ps = .002 – .003).

In the Anxiety model, fit statistics indicated good fit, (CFI = .95, RSMEA = .059, SRMR = .04). Mothers’ use of EFR (β = −.166, p = .002) and PFR (β = −.212, p = .001) behaviors were significantly associated with lower levels of anxiety over time. Asymmetric 95% CIs revealed significant mediation paths for both EFR (b=.016, SE = .007, CI = [.004, .033]) and PFR (b = .033, SE = .012, CI = [.012, .058]). The presence of greater neighborhood risk was significantly associated with mothers’ decreased use of both EFR and PFR strategies, which was predictive of increases in children’s anxiety over time. Fathers’ different reaction strategies were not significantly related to children’s anxiety levels over time. Interestingly, neighborhood risk was significantly predictive of children’s anxiety symptoms in both the father model (β = −.20, p < .001) and mother model (β = −.30, p < .001), such that higher levels of risk predicted lower anxiety over time. See Figures 1 and 2 for all path results.

Figure 1.

Figure 1.

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Maternal Reactions and Anxiety Outcome

Bold line denotes significant pathways. Dotted line depicts nonsignificant pathways. *p ≤ .05 **p ≤ .01 ***p ≤ .001

Figure 2.

Figure 2.

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Paternal Reactions and Anxiety Outcome

Bold line denotes significant pathways. Dotted line depicts nonsignificant pathways. *p ≤ .05 **p ≤ .01 ***p ≤ .001

In the Behavioral Problems model, fit statistics showed a good fit, (CFI = .96, RSMEA = .05, SRMR = .04). Use of fathers’ EE behaviors significantly predicted higher levels of behavioral problems over time, (β = .168, p = .008), though the mediation effect was nonsignificant, [−.035, .012]. None of mothers’ reaction behaviors were significantly associated with children’s behavioral problems. Neighborhood risk was not significantly associated with behavioral problems in either mother or father model. See Figures 3 and 4 for all path results. Additional exploratory and sensitivity analyses were conducted to assess robustness of findings and are reported in the Supplementary Materials.

Figure 3.

Figure 3.

Open in a new tab

Maternal Reactions and Behavioral Problems Outcome

Bold line denotes significant pathways. Dotted line depicts nonsignificant pathways. *p ≤ .05 **p ≤ .01 ***p ≤ .001

Figure 4.

Figure 4.

Open in a new tab

Paternal Reactions and Behavioral Problems Outcome

Bold line denotes significant pathways. Dotted line depicts nonsignificant pathways. *p ≤ .05 **p ≤ .01 ***p ≤ .001

DISCUSSION

The current longitudinal and multi-method investigation explored parental socialization behaviors in response to children’s emotional distress in the protection domain of caregiving. Moreover, mothers’ and fathers’ caregiving strategies were further examined in their relationship to children’s socioemotional outcomes of anxiety symptoms and behavioral problems. Finally, parental socialization and child outcomes were situated within a larger ecological context through testing associations with neighborhood risk. Analyses revealed that exposure to neighborhood risk was associated with reduced use of emotion and problem-focused strategies in both mothers and fathers, as well as reduced minimizing-supportive behaviors in mothers. In turn, mothers’ use of emotion and problem-focused strategies were significantly predictive of reduced anxiety in children over time, and both mediation pathways were significant. Fathers’ use of expressive encouragement strategies was significantly associated with higher levels of children’s behavioral problems over time.

Results from the current study provide support that parents’ distress-reaction strategies should be distinctly evaluated, rather than combined into “supportive” and “nonsupportive” categories. When eliciting these reaction behaviors during an observational paradigm that activates the protection domain, mothers’ and fathers’ reaction strategies show different associations with one another. While PFR and MSR are positively correlated with one another in both mothers and fathers, similar patterns do not arise with other strategies. Evaluating existing literature that utilizes the original CCNES, there is some evidence of low to moderate correlations between EE, EFR, and PFR subscales that are inconsistent between studies (e.g. Altan-Aytun et al., 2013; Fabes et al., 2002; Hersh & Hussong, 2009), further supporting the argument that these behaviors should be examined independently. Furthermore, current analyses reveal differential predictive utility of the distinct reaction strategies with respect to children’s adjustment outcomes. As the current study measures parental distress-reaction behaviors through observation utilizing a novel coding scheme, findings may not apply to studies using traditional methods. Future research should be done to test construct and predictive validity of the new coding scheme in respect to the original CCNES measure.

Maternal Socialization in the Protection Domain and Children’s Outcomes

Turning to mothers’ effects on children’s socioemotional outcomes, mothers’ use of both emotion and problem-focused reactions were significantly predictive of decreased levels of children’s anxiety symptoms over time. Additionally, both mediation effects were significant such that higher levels of neighborhood risk were associated with lower use of EFR and PFR, and consequently, higher levels of anxiety over time. These results are in accordance with established literature on use of supportive reaction behaviors predicting regulation of negative emotions (e.g. Davidov & Grusec, 2006; Eisenberg et al., 2001). Mothers’ use of EFR and PFR may be especially pertinent to children’s anxiety, as the observational task used to elicit response behaviors triggers the protection domain and, subsequently, children’s anxiety (Grusec & Davidov, 2010). These reaction strategies are proactive in nature, through discussion of emotions or addressing the threat, and this may work to promote children’s ability to navigate distressing environments.

Moreover, the observed significance of these maternal mediation pathways may reflect the specific socialization domain and developmental context in which these behaviors are occurring. Though the division of caregiving has evolved over time and fathers are increasingly more involved (e.g., Craig et al., 2014), mothers often remain children’s primary caregivers and socializers, especially in early childhood (Milkie et al., 2002; Sayer & Gornick, 2012). Due to the children’s young ages and mothers’ role as primary caregivers, it follows that mothers responding sensitively to children’s distress may be associated with lower levels of anxiety symptoms over time (see Cooke et al., 2019 for review). Supporting this, Umemura et al. (2013) found that, when distressed, toddlers preferred their mother over their father, even after controlling for attachment security to both parents.

Also revealing is that, in this model, EFR and PFR strategies in the protection domain function similarly. Nonetheless, they each hold significant effects on children’s anxiety unique of one another. Though there is little research disentangling effects of emotion- and problem-focused reactions, they are distinct in nature and aim to address the stressor differently (Fabes et al., 1990). This similarity between the two could be due to the nature of the observational task. As this paradigm is situated within the protection domain and triggers distress, it can be inferred that mothers’ use of different response strategies serves the same goal of alleviating their child’s negative emotions.

Mothers’ reactions were not significantly associated with behavioral problems, suggesting that in this study, maternal emotional socialization practices are particularly impactful on children’s anxiety outcomes. It is possible that mothers’ response strategies within the protection domain may be connected to behavioral problems through indirect pathways, such as the inability to regulate empathetic arousal (Grusec & Davidov, 2010; Grusec, 2011). As regulation of empathetic arousal is a more proximal mechanism for behavioral problems, future research should test this as a pathway.

Paternal Socialization in the Protection Domain and Children’s Outcomes

Turning to effects of fathers’ socialization on children’s socioemotional development, fathers’ use of expressive encouragement reactions was significantly associated with an increase in behavioral problems over time. Though surprising, very few studies have examined the effects of EE on children’s externalizing behaviors. One prior study found that the direct effect of EE on children’s externalizing behaviors was nonsignificant (Bjørk et al., 2020). Studies on fathers’ emotion socialization behaviors more generally have found mixed results regarding impact on children’s externalizing outcomes (e.g. Strayer & Roberts, 2004; Verhoeven et al., 2010), evidencing a need for more research. Although speculative, an explanation of the current study’s results could be that if fathers are engaging in EE behaviors within the protection domain without providing other strategies to help children cope with their stressor, it may elevate children’s externalizing behaviors over time. Externalizing behaviors are often paired with emotions like anger, considered a high-approach emotion (Harmon-Jones et al., 2014). By extension, fathers’ encouragement of high-approach emotions in the presence of a threat may facilitate a child’s approach orientation, potentially resulting in increased externalization over time. Future research should be done to explore this relationship further. Although this should be interpreted with caution until replicated, results hold value in providing evidence for departure from established boundaries of supportive and unsupportive labels. Moreover, results contribute to the growing literature on paternal emotion socialization strategies and children’s emotional outcomes.

Direct effects of neighborhood risk

To contextualize results within an ecological framework, we interpret the remaining results with respect to neighborhood risk. Neighborhood risk was significantly associated with lower use of emotion-focused and problem-focused behaviors in both mothers and fathers. It may be the case that use of these strategies involves more effort and energy on the part of parents, as using EFR or PFR strategies required parents to accurately identify children’s distress and develop strategies or solutions to help their child. Therefore, a potential explanation of this effect is that parents living in higher-risk environments and exposed to frequent stressors may have less capacity for engaging in more effortful socialization strategies (Nelson et al., 2009). There is substantial research on effects of neighborhood risk factors, such as poverty or inaccessibility to resources, on parents’ mental health outcomes (e.g. Franco et al., 2010; Simons et al., 1997). Parents living in these environments are exposed to more stressors and, consequently, may be experiencing more parental fatigue (Al’Uqdah et al., 2015), thus making it harder to engage in more effortful EFR and PFR strategies. Supporting literature has found family and household risk factors associated with greater use of unsupportive strategies (Nelson et al., 2009; Shaffer et al., 2012). Socioeconomic risk has been associated with mothers’ reduced capacity to flexibly adapt to stressors (Sturge-Apple et al., 2017), further supporting the argument that high-stress environments may impede on parents’ abilities to adjust and respond to children’s needs.

Another potential explanation is that neighborhood risk may shift parental priorities for how they protect their children and, in turn, the strategies they use to fulfill their goals. There is a growing body of literature on parenting behaviors having differential outcomes dependent on environmental contexts families are situated in (e.g. Callahan et al., 2011; Caughy & Franzini, 2005, Dunbar et al., 2022). However, few studies examine direct effects of neighborhood risk on specific emotion socialization strategies, and future work should address this notable gap.

Interestingly, analyses found that neighborhood risk was associated with lower use of minimizing-supportive reactions in mothers. This appears to contradict past literature (e.g. Shaffer et al., 2012) and, subsequently, the current study’s hypothesis that risk would be associated with higher levels of MSR behaviors. However, the current study utilizes a more specific definition of minimizing behaviors that deviates from past studies’ operationalization of minimization, targeting the minimization of the threat specifically. While protection is an ultimate goal of all parents, this may be especially pertinent to families living in contexts with greater risk, as it may be more adaptive to address any threat rather than minimize it (Grusec, 2011). Supporting this is research linking exposure to neighborhood risk with greater neural reactivity to threat (Suarez et al., 2022; Webb et al., 2023). More work should be done to study effectiveness of different socialization strategies within the protection domain dependent on families’ backgrounds and environmental contexts.

Finally, exploring direct effects of neighborhood risk on children’s outcomes, results indicated that in both mother and father models, higher levels of neighborhood risk was associated with lower levels of children’s anxiety over time. This finding was unexpected and contradicts existing literature on consequential effects of neighborhood risk on children’s mental health, (e.g. Urban et al., 2009). However, very few studies examine direct effects of neighborhood risk on young children’s anxiety, specifically. The little research that does explore this link, or the association with young children’s internalization more broadly, are inconsistent. Some have found nonsignificant direct effects (e.g., Callahan et al., 2011), significant effects in expected directions (e.g., Xue et al., 2005), or significant effects in the unexpected direction (Furr-Holden et al., 2011; Mian et al., 2011), similar to the current study’s finding.

In the current study, it may be that parents living in high-risk neighborhoods are engaging in additional protective measures not captured in the model that may buffer children from effects of neighborhood risk. For example, Suarez et al. (2024) found that parental nurturance moderated the association between exposure to community violence and early adolescents’ heightened amygdala reactivity, such that the relationship was only significant under low levels of nurturance. This may be particularly salient in early childhood, as young children are predominately with their parents and have limited independent interactions with their neighborhood environments. However, another potential explanation is that children living in high-risk environments may exhibit fewer behavioral indicators of anxiety. McCoy et al., (2016) found that children living in high-crime neighborhoods had lower rates of teacher-reported internalization. Given the limited research examining this direct link, especially in young children, interpretations should be considered cautiously. Future work is needed to identify underlying mechanisms explaining this pathway.

Strengths

A continuously growing field of research, parental emotional socialization literature is vast and expansive. Nonetheless, work specifically examining parental responses to children’s negative emotions rarely looks past conventional boundaries of “supportive” and “unsupportive” socialization strategies, limiting the scope in which we can view and interpret functionality of individual socialization strategies. Furthermore, reactions to children’s distress are most often measured through parents’ self-reports of general situations in which their children may be upset (e.g. Fabes et al., 1990). Additionally, a majority of research overlooks fathers’ reports and only measures maternal use of supportive and nonsupportive reaction strategies. The current study offers specificity to the literature by measuring mothers’ and fathers’ reactions through administration of an observational paradigm situated within the protection domain. By employing a novel coding system derived from the prevailing CCNES (Fabes et al., 1990), researchers are able to directly observe use of specific reaction strategies within the protection domain without relying on participants’ reports of their own parenting behaviors. Moreover, the current study explores these individual reaction strategies within the context of neighborhood risk. Though there is extensive research on different parenting and child development outcomes associated with living in high-risk contexts, there is a notable gap in the literature when examining neighborhood influences on emotion socialization strategies. This longitudinal, multi-method, and multi-informant project addresses many of the existing gaps in the field by exploring the ways neighborhood risk is differentially associated with mothers’ and fathers’ use of specific distress-reaction strategies, which over time uniquely impacts children’s anxiety and behavioral problems.

Limitations

Though the current project offers many contributions, there are important limitations to note. While the novelty of the project is a great strength, lack of prior literature does present as a limitation when it comes to interpretation of results, and results should be replicated. The CCNES (Fabes et al., 1990) was not administered in the original study and thus does not allow for comparison with the current coding system. From a psychometric perspective, it is important to demonstrate construct and external validity of measures. Future work should address this by administering the CCNES (Fabes et al., 1990) and validating the coding system in different samples. Additionally, data on neighborhood risk and on parents’ response-strategies are taken from the same wave of data collection, necessitating careful interpretation of significant associations. However, inclusion of autoregressive paths for the outcomes does allow us to make inferences on changes in child outcomes after accounting for baseline levels. Furthermore, measures of child outcomes rely on maternal reporting, and future work would benefit from measuring child outcomes through other reporters, including trained observational coders or teacher-reports. In addition, Wave 1 child outcome subscales have modest internal consistency. Though slightly below ideal, this is consistent with existing literature in young children and community samples (e.g. Buss et al., 2021; Lemery et al., 2002). As this is not a sample reporting clinical levels of anxiety or behavioral problems, distress-response strategies may hold different implications, and future work should examine these parenting behaviors in clinical samples. Finally, it is important to note that, while there is a diverse range of participants included in the project, this is not a high-risk sample. The study should be replicated in a sample of participants living in high-risk contexts to best measure effects of neighborhood risk on parents’ reaction strategies.

Future directions

Limitations notwithstanding, the current study adds to the literature by implementing an observational assessment of parental emotion socialization strategies, highlighting the importance of unpacking broad classifications of socialization behaviors. Furthermore, the results allow us to identify how mothers’ and fathers’ response strategies differ in use and impact while embedded within a proximal context of neighborhood risk. While this work is novel and should be replicated, it provides continued support for specificity in both the predictive utility of distinct distress-reaction strategies as well as differential effects of mothers’ and fathers’ use of these strategies on their children over time. Future work can build upon these findings by considering protective factors neighborhoods may have on emotion socialization, including dimensions of social cohesion. Gaining a better understanding of neighborhood-level predictors on emotion socialization strategies may allow researchers to design interventions targeting positive community factors. To this end, future work may benefit from the simultaneous modeling of both neighborhood and family-level indicators to further disentangle the unique effects neighborhood-level predictors may have on emotion-socialization strategies. Finally, the current study explores the relationship between distinct emotion socialization strategies and children’s emotional outcomes within the protection domain. To increase our understanding of domain specificity in regard to parenting socialization strategies, future research should administer behavioral protocols that activate other socialization domains.

Supplementary Material

Supplemental Material

Public Significance Statement:

This study found that neighborhood risk can affect how mothers and fathers respond to their children’s distress, which in turn influences children’s emotional and behavioral development over time. These results highlight how specific parenting behaviors can reduce or amplify children’s anxiety and behavioral problems, which offers valuable insight to parents and parenting researchers who strive to promote positive child development in under resourced communities.

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