The impact of parents' attachment styles and empathy skills on 5-7 year old children's emotion regulation skills

This study was conducted to examine the effect of parents' attachment styles and empathy skills on emotion regulation skills of children aged 5-7 years. Predictive correlational model, one of the quantitative research designs, was used in the study. The participants of the study consisted of 266 parents and their children selected by convenience sampling method. Basic Empathy Scale, Three Dimensional Attachment Styles Scale and Emotion Regulation Scale were used as data collection tools. Independent Groups t Test, Pearson Correlation Analysis and Multiple Linear Regression Analysis were used to analyse the data. The analyses were performed using SPSS 26 software. As a result of the study, a significant relationship was found between parents' secure and avoidant attachment styles and their empathy skills. While a significant relationship was found between anxious attachment and cognitive empathy, no statistically significant relationship was found between emotional empathy and anxious attachment. A significant relationship was found between parents' attachment styles and children's emotion regulation abilities. While a significant relationship was found between the negativity subdimension of emotion regulation and secure and anxious attachment, no significant relationship was found between negativity and avoidant attachment. A significant relationship was found between parents' empathy skills and children's emotion regulation abilities. While a significant relationship was found between negativity and cognitive empathy, no significant relationship was found between negativity and emotional empathy. Children's emotion regulation abilities showed significant differences between gender groups and school levels. However, no significant difference was found between the groups in terms of the negativity variable. Parents' attachment styles significantly predicted their empathy skills. However, parents' attachment styles and empathy skills did not significantly predict the negativity variable. Finally, parents' secure attachment style and cognitive empathy skill significantly predicted children's emotion regulation abilities.