A Reviewin the Context of Emotion Socialization

Objective:

The purpose of the current study is to review studies related to emotion socialization defined as reaction of the parents towards their children’s emotions and the communication between parents and child when the child feels negative emotions like fear, anxiety, stress or sadness and the effects of the mentioned process on the child’s emotional and behavioral development.

Method:

Various databases were searched by using keywords such as “emotion socialization”, “emotion regulation” and “emotion coaching” and published papers were reviewed in the context of the study’s aim

Results:

Reviewed studies indicated that parents’ interpretations of child’s emotions, appropriate or inappropriate reactions, sensitivity or neglect would be defining characteristics for emotion regulation skills and emotion competence of the child in his future life. As positive emotion socialization approaches are emphasized to be a beneficial influence on the child’s motional and behavioral development, negative emotion socialization approaches are seen as having harmful and negative effects on the abovementioned developmental processes.

Discussion:

By educating parents with programmes that focus on the importance of being aware of the child’s emotions and their reactions to those emotions, in other words, ducationalprogrammes that contain emotion socialization as a topic with examples from daily life would have a supportive and protective role in the prevention and intervention of the child’s behavioral problems through a contribution in widespread conscious parenting.