Fathers' and Mothers' Emotional Accessibility and Youth's Developmental Outcomes

ABSTRACT

This study examined the association between parents' emotional accessibility and youth's functioning. Participants included 154 parents who completed measures of parental emotional accessibility and their children's emotional and behavioral problems. Results showed that mothers are more emotionally accessible to their children. Mothers' emotional accessibility was associated negatively with youth's emotional and behavioral problems; whereas, fathers' emotional accessibility was associated with only youth's behavioral problems. This study highlights the importance of examining parental emotional accessibility when studying youth's development, utilizing parental perceptions to learn about youth and family functioning, and actively including fathers in family research studies.

Notes

1. As the term “emotional availability” and “EA” are trademarked terms referring specifically to the Emotional Availability (EA) Scale and its derivatives (Biringen, 2008), the term “emotional accessibility” will be used throughout this manuscript to refer to all studies that measured the following related constructs: emotional availability, parental sensitivity, nonintrusiveness, and supportive reactions to children's emotional displays. Although we cannot use the term “emotional availability” for any studies other than those that used Biringen's scales due to the trademarking of this term, we believe that the terms “emotional availability” and “emotional accessibility” can be used interchangeably.