Investigating the relation between maternal childhood traumatic experiences and children's emotion regulation: Mediating role of maternal emotion regulation and emotion socialization

History of maternal childhood trauma predicts socio-emotional difficulties in children. This relationship implies that a traumatic experience can be transmitted to the next generation. The present study examines the underlying mechanisms of the intergenerational effect of trauma on children's emotion regulation abilities. Previous research indicated positive correlations among one's early traumatic experiences, emotion regulation difficulties and negative parenting outcomes. We also know that emotion socialization practices, which could be considered as a parental task, predict children's emotion regulation skills. These findings were the basis why we have proposed maternal emotion regulation difficulties and unsupportive emotion socialization practices as mediators in the current study. Mothers (n = 195) who have children between the ages of 4-11, participated in our study. Participants completed self-report measures assessing their traumatic history, emotion regulation difficulties, use of socialization of negative emotions and their children's emotion regulation skills. A serial mediation analysis demonstrated that maternal emotional regulation difficulties which create unsupportive emotion socialization practices significantly mediated the relationship between maternal childhood trauma and child's emotion regulation skills. The results emphasize the significance of maternal emotional regulation difficulties and unsupportive emotion socialization processes to explain the intergenerational transmission of trauma on children's emotion regulation skills. The study has several theoretical as well as clinical implications in terms of the mechanisms of trauma transmission and intervention possibilities to break that cycle.