The mediating role of children's emotion regulation skills in the relationship between maternal acceptance- rejection attitudes of mothers with children aged 4-6 and children's social anxiety

In this study, we explored whether mothers' perception of their children's emotion regulation skills has a mediating role in the association between maternal tendencies to accept or reject their children and the mothers' perceived social anxiety levels in their children. The study involved 403 mothers with at least one child aged between 4 and 6. The differences in sociodemographic properties based on the scales used were investigated. To examine maternal acceptance-rejection tendencies toward their children, we utilized the parents' acceptance-rejection scale. The Revised Preschool Anxiety Scale was employed to evaluate children's social anxiety levels. Conversely, the Emotion Regulation Skills Scale was administered to determine their emotion regulation competencies. Spearman rank correlation coefficients revealed a moderately positive association between maternal rejection and the child's social anxiety, a moderately negative relati-onship between maternal rejection and the child's ability to regulate positive emotions, and a moderately positive relationship between maternal rejection and the child's tendency to use negative emotion regulation strategies. Children's social anxiety levels and positive emotion regulation ability were negatively correlated. Conversely, a positive association was observed between children's social anxiety levels and negative emotion regulation abilities. The mediation analysis conducted via SPSS software utilizing Process Macro Tool revealed a partial mediation between maternal rejection and children's social anxiety by both their positive and negative emotion regulation strategies.