Examination of preschool children's anxiety with a mediator model: the effect of mother's emotion regulation skills and child's emotion expression styles

ABSTRACT

Aim

The aim of this study is to determine the relationship between emotional regulation difficulties of mothers with preschool children and children's anxiety with a mediator model.

Method

The study, which is a cross-sectional survey study. ‘Mother–Child Descriptive Information Form', ‘Emotion Regulation Skills Questionnaire (ERSQ)', ‘Revised Preschool Anxiety Scale (RPAS)', ‘Child Emotion Expression Styles Questionnaire (CEEQ) – Maternal Form' were used to collect data.

Results

The path coefficients between total ERSQ points of mothers with child happy (β = 1.338; p = <0.001), sad (β = –0.582; p = 0.02), angry (β = –0.993; p = 0.001), and fear (β = –0.993; p<0.001) emotion points were found to be statistically significant (β = 1.338; p = <0.001). Path analysis was used to examine the effects of scales on each other.

Conclusion

As a result, it was determined that as mothers’ emotion regulation skills increased, the child's total anxiety level, the child's angry feeling, and the child's scared feeling decreased, and the child's sense of happiness increased.

KEYWORDS:

• Mother–child relationship
• anxiety
• emotion expression styles
• emotion regulation
• nursing

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).