Parent-child attachment and children's experience and regulation of emotion: A meta-analytic review.

Attachment relationships serve as contexts within which children develop emotional capacities. This meta-analytic review assessed the strength of associations of parent-child attachment patterns with the experience and regulation of emotion in children under age 18 years. In a series of meta-analyses (k = 72 studies, N's ranged from 87 to 9,167), we examined children's positive and negative affective experiences (assessed either globally or elicited in specific contexts), emotion regulation ability, and coping strategies. More securely attached children experienced more global positive affect and less global negative affect, expressed less elicited negative affect, were better able to regulate emotions, and more often used cognitive and social support coping strategies. More avoidantly attached children experienced less global positive affect, were less able to regulate emotions, and were less likely to use cognitive or social support coping strategies. By contrast, more ambivalently attached children experienced more global and more elicited negative affect, and were less able to regulate emotions. More disorganized children experienced less global positive affect and more global negative affect. These robust findings provide evidence that attachments to parents have implications for children's emotional development, although more research is needed on whether insecure attachment patterns are associated with distinct emotion profiles. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Parent-child attachment: meta-analysis of associations with parenting behaviors in middle childhood and adolescence.

Maternal sensitivity predicts mother-child attachment in young children, but no meta-analysis has investigated the link between parenting and parent-child attachment in older children. This study examined the relationship between parent-child attachment and multiple components of parenting in children 5-18 years of age. A series of meta-analyses showed that parents of children with more secure attachment are more responsive, more supportive of the child's autonomy, use more behavioral control strategies, and use less harsh control strategies. Parents of children with more avoidant attachment were less responsive and used less behavioral control strategies. Ambivalent attachment was not significantly related to any of the parenting behaviors, and there were not enough studies to reliably test the relationship between disorganized attachment and parenting. There were few significant moderators. The findings inform new areas for future research, as well as family interventions for at-risk youth.

Preadolescents' Relationships with Pet Dogs: Relationship Continuity and Associations with Adjustment.

Research on human-animal interaction in children has been studied in isolation rather than integrated with core theories of children's relationships. This study is one of the first to examine how children's relationships with pet dogs are related to their human relationships (parent-child attachments, friendships) and to child adjustment, and to include observational assessment of children's interactions with their pet dog. Children (9 to 11 years old, n = 99) completed questionnaires regarding relationships with pet dogs, parents, and friends. Half the children were observed interacting with their pet dog. Children and teachers reported children's adjustment. Children who felt closer to their dogs were more securely attached to mothers and fathers, and reported more positive qualities and less conflict with friends. Children with more secure attachments to mothers, and greater companionship with dogs, interacted more with their dogs. Parental attachment and friendship quality, but not the pet dog relationship, were related to child adjustment.

Children's emotion understanding and mother-child attachment: A meta-analysis.

Understanding emotions serves as a critical foundation for several aspects of children's social development. Secure attachment relationships, which allow for open emotion communication between the parent and child, are hypothesized to foster emotion understanding. The goal of the current meta-analysis was to determine the strength of the relationship between emotion understanding and attachment security. We conducted an electronic search using PsycINFO and identified 10 studies (N = 564 children) examining this association in children younger than 18 years of age. The meta-analysis yielded a medium and significant overall effect size of r = .33 with no significant moderators. Thus, our results demonstrated that the association between emotion understanding and security of attachment is quite robust. (PsycINFO Database Record

Emotional Competence and Anxiety in Childhood and Adolescence: A Meta-Analytic Review.

Anxiety is conceptualized as a state of negative emotional arousal that is accompanied by concern about future threat. The purpose of this meta-analytic review was to evaluate the evidence of associations between emotional competence and anxiety by examining how specific emotional competence domains (emotion recognition, emotion expression, emotion awareness, emotion understanding, acceptance of emotion, emotional self-efficacy, sympathetic/empathic responses to others' emotions, recognition of how emotion communication and self-presentation affect relationships, and emotion regulatory processes) relate to anxiety in childhood and adolescence. A total of 185 studies were included in a series of meta-analyses (N's ranged from 573 to 25,711). Results showed that anxious youth are less effective at expressing (r = -0.15) and understanding emotions (r = -0.20), less aware of (r = -0.28) and less accepting of their own emotions (r = -0.49), and report less emotional self-efficacy (r = -0.36). More anxious children use more support-seeking coping strategies (r = 0.07) and are more likely to use less adaptive coping strategies including avoidant coping (r = 0.18), externalizing (r = 0.18), and maladaptive cognitive coping (r = 0.34). Emotion acceptance and awareness, emotional self-efficacy, and maladaptive cognitive coping yielded the largest effect sizes. Some effects varied with children's age. The findings inform intervention and treatment programs of anxiety in youth and identify several areas for future research.

Assessing both safe haven and secure base support in parent-child relationships.

Although the attachment construct refers to a child's tendency to use an attachment figure both as a safe haven in times of distress as well as a secure base from which to explore, approaches to assessing attachment at older ages have focused on safe haven behavior. We tested modified versions of the Friends and Family Interview and the Security Scale Questionnaire to examine separately the correlates of safe haven and secure base support from parents. The main study (n = 107 children, 10-14-year-olds) included both interview and questionnaire assessments of safe haven and secure base support from mothers and fathers. The two methods converged in expected ways, and both showed associations with narrative coherence. Children reported greater safe haven support from mothers and greater secure base support from fathers, suggesting secure base support is a key aspect of father-child attachment. Both mother-child and father-child relationships were related to children's school adjustment and coping.