Background: Emotional and behavioral problems (EBPs) in preschool-aged children are a growing concern worldwide, posing significant challenges in developmental psychopathology.
Objective: This study aimed to examine the bidirectional longitudinal associations between emotion socialization parenting practices (supportive and unsupportive) and preschoolers' EBPs (internalizing, externalizing, and prosocial behaviors).
Methods: A three-wave longitudinal study was conducted from 2018 to 2019, involving 1,246 preschool children (mean age 3.28 years, 53.8% boys) in Hong Kong. Parents reported on their emotion socialization practices using the Emotion-related Parenting Styles Questionnaire and on children's EBPs using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Cross-lagged panel modeling tested directional associations between parenting and child outcomes over time.
Findings: Emotion-related parenting practices and children's EBPs showed significant stability across time points. Unsupportive emotional parenting significantly predicted later internalizing problems (β = 0.08 [95% CI, 0.03-0.13], p < .01) and decreased prosocial behavior (β = -0.08 [95% CI, -0.12 to -0.04], p < .001), while supportive emotional parenting predicted increased prosocial behavior (β = 0.09 [95% CI, 0.04-0.14], p < .01). No significant effects were found for externalizing problems, and supportive emotional parenting showed no effects on internalizing problems. The reverse paths from children's emotional and behavioral problems to parenting were not significant, suggesting unidirectional effects from emotion-related parenting to child development.
Conclusions: Unsupportive emotional parenting contributes to children's internalizing problems and reduced prosocial behaviour, while supportive emotional parenting promotes prosocial behaviour. Enhancing parents' supportive emotion socialization practices may be a promising target for future interventions to reduce preschool children's emotional and behavioural difficulties.