Emotion Regulation Learning Processes Within two Parenting Systems in the Case of a Foster Preschooler

ABSTRACT

Acts of abuse are indicative of a parent's inability to regulate his or her own emotions in an appropriate manner and jeopardize a child's development. Foster care should provide a safe environment both to protect a child from harm and to heal a damaging social-emotional developmental trajectory. How does a child learn to regulate his or her emotions faced with the two different environments of foster home and parental home? This study is based on the use of a microanalytic observation method using a video-recording device in natural settings. It concerns a preschooler, Lola, aged 5, and her birth parents and Foster Mother (FM), who together form her caregivers. To evaluate the evolution of their interactions over a year, three observational sessions were held at an interval of six months. The emotional regulation learning processes used by Lola and her caregivers during playtime were analyzed with Emotion Regulation Strategies (ERS) coding systems in order to build ERS cycles. The analysis of this case showed that Lola learnt to develop language strategies to regulate her emotions with her FM, while exhibiting self-soothing behaviors and distraction strategies with her biological parents. The degree of distress and emotional tension in her birth family had a critical impact on Lola's ERS learning processes. Clinical implications for child care practices are discussed following a clinical psychology perspective.

KEYWORDS:

• Fostering
• parenting
• child protection
• emotion regulation
• observational method

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Tony Baker, Elizabeth Hanaway and Emmanuelle Mollet O’Grady for their thoughtful comments and advice while editing in English this manuscript and the Laboratory Vulnérabilité, Capabilité, Rétablissement which supported the fees for the English proof-reading.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Pauline Simon-Herrera

Pauline Simon-Herrera is a clinical psychologist working with families and children since 10 years. She has been working on the processes of emotion regulation development in abused children.

Alain Blanchet

Alain Blanchet is an emeritus professor of psychology. His work is focused on language processes. He is known for his work on interviewing procedures.

Nathalie Duriez

Nathalie Duriez is an associate professor of clinical psychology, a family therapist and a researcher working on family processes. She has been studying the emotion regulation processes as a new core feature to understand family systems.