Investigation of relationship between parent's emotion socialization and children's social competence

The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between parent's emotion socialization behaviors and Children's social competence and behavior problems. Contribution of parents' child rearing attitudes, emotion socialization behaviors and socio-demographic characteristics to children's social competence and behavior problems is also examined in the study. 195 children, their mothers, fathers and teachers participated in the study. Children's age is between 39-72 months and they are continuing their preschool education in Gaziantep during the study. The mean age of the children participating in the study was 60.42 (sd=7.9) months. 103 of the children were boys (52.8%) and 92 were girls (47.2%). To obtain socio-demographic information, the parents completed the parent information form as well as the Coping with Negative Emotions Scale to measure parents' emotion socialization behaviors and the Child Rearing Questionnaire to measure parents' child rearing attitudes. In addition, both parents and teachers completed the Social Competence and Behavior Evaluation-30 to assess children's social competence. Data were analyzed with SPSS program. Statistical analysis showed that the supportive emotion socialization behaviors adopted by both parents had a positive effect on children's social competence. Also, positive child rearing behaviors of both parents contributed positively to children's social competence. In terms of gender, it was found that mothers considered girls more socially competent. It was found that both parents' high education level and high-income level of the family associated with both parents' less non-supportive emotion socialization and both parents' negative child rearing attitude. According to the regression analysis, none of the independent variables had a significant effect on predicting behavior problems reported by teachers. The findings were discussed in the light of the literature. Keywords: Emotion Socialization, Child Rearing, Social Competence, Behavior Problems