Families Facing Pandemic Modifications of Everyday Life: A Mixed Study on Mothers' and Children's Emotional Reactions and Regulation Strategies.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused many enduring changes in the everyday life of families, with negative effects on parents' and children's wellbeing. However, there is a lack of studies in the literature exploring the emotional reactions and coping strategies of both mothers and children of different ages. Furthermore, most studies used only self-reports. This study aimed to identify the emotions and coping strategies of children, adolescents and their mothers and to verify the association between maternal and child wellbeing. A mixed-method design using interviews and questionnaires was applied to collect information on wellbeing (emotional reactions, behavioral/emotional problems) and coping strategies of both mothers (n = 65; M age = 42.17; SD = 4.40; M age = 41.63; SD = 4.48), and their children (n = 35, 8-10 year; n = 30, 11-13 year) during the second wave of the pandemic (December 2020). No differences between the groups emerged concerning the emotional reactions reported. In contrast, mothers and children of different ages reported different self-regulation and other-regulation strategies. Moreover, maternal strategies had different effects on children's wellbeing. The integration of qualitative and quantitative results was informative to understand how families adapted to the radical changes of everyday life related to the pandemic. The implications for developing interventions in such similar stressful situations to promote family wellbeing are discussed.

Emotion Regulation in Toddlerhood: Regulatory Strategies in Anger and Fear Eliciting Contexts at 24 and 30 Months.

The study investigated the emergence of toddlers' regulatory strategies in aversive contexts. Forty-two toddlers were observed at 24 and 30 months of age using two paradigms designed to elicit fear and anger. We examined toddlers' use of regulatory strategies at these two stages of life regarding the frequency of self-versus other-oriented strategies and of reactive versus more controlled behaviors. Results showed that the type and level of control of strategies used in toddlerhood in managing negative emotions depend on emotion (e.g., fear versus anger) and age. Toddlers used self-oriented strategies to regulate fear and other-oriented strategies to regulate anger. To manage fear, when toddlers got older, they increased the use of reactive strategies (i.e., releasing tension) and decreased the use of more purposeful strategies (i.e., dealing with the aversive stimulus). In contrast, to regulate anger, toddlers utilized an intermediate level of control (i.e., drawing the mother's attention to themselves) and increased the use of this strategy with age. In addition, toddlers were able to select appropriate strategies for different stressors, and they increased with age the ability to adapt the strategies to the environmental conditions. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

The interplay between parenting and environmental sensitivity in the prediction of children's externalizing and internalizing behaviors during COVID-19.

The interplay of parenting and environmental sensitivity on children's behavioral adjustment during, and immediately after, the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions was investigated in two longitudinal studies involving Italian preschoolers (Study 1, N = 72; 43% girls, Myears = 3.82(1.38)) and primary school children (Study 2, N = 94; 55% girls, Myears = 9.08(0.56)). Data were collected before and during the first-wave lockdown (Studies 1 and 2) and one month later (Study 1). Parental stress and parent-child closeness were measured. Markers of environmental sensitivity in children were temperamental fearfulness and Sensory Processing Sensitivity. Results showed little change in externalizing and internalizing behaviors over time, but differences emerged when considering parenting and children's environmental sensitivity. In preschoolers, greater parenting stress was related to a stronger increase in internalizing and externalizing behaviors, with children high in fearful temperament showing a more marked decrease in externalizing behaviors when parenting stress was low. In school-aged children, parent-child closeness emerged as a protective factor for internalizing and externalizing behaviors during COVID-19, with children high in Sensory Processing Sensitivity showing a marked decrease in internalizing behaviors when closeness was high. Implications for developmental theory and practice in times of pandemic are discussed.

Infant-Directed Speech From a Multidimensional Perspective: The Interplay of Infant Birth Status, Maternal Parenting Stress, and Dyadic Co-regulation on Infant-Directed Speech Linguistic and Pragmatic Features.

Infant-directed speech (IDS), the particular form of spontaneous language observed in interactions between parents and their infants, is a crucial aspect of the mother-infant interaction and an index of the attunement of maternal linguistic input to her infant communicative abilities and needs during dyadic interactions. The present study aimed to explore linguistic and pragmatic features of IDS during mother-infant interactions at 3-month of infant age. The effects of infant (birth status: preterm vs. full-term birth), maternal (perceived parenting stress) and dyadic (dyadic co-regulation) factors on IDS were explored. Results evidenced few differences between the groups on IDS linguistic characteristics. Moreover, observing the interaction of birth status and dyadic co-regulation, full-term mothers varied their IDS pragmatic features according to the quality of co-regulation while preterm mothers did not. Parenting stress was associated to specific linguistic IDS features independently from the birth status. Findings are discussed underling implications for the study of preterm dyads interactions and the importance to consider the interplay of several factors in affecting the quality of IDS.

Verbal - prosodic association when narrating early caregiving experiences during the adult attachment interview: differences between secure and dismissing individuals.

Previous studies reported an inconsistency between verbal extracts and emotional physiological activation in dismissing individuals when narrating their early caregiving experience at the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI). This study aimed to explore this discrepancy by analyzing the degree of concordance between verbal content and prosodic characteristics, index of physiological activation, when dismissing and secure individuals discuss negative childhood memories during the AAI. Results showed that secure participants presented a high coherence between verbal content and emotional activation, as expressed by prosody, revealing a reprocess of negative experiences that is the core feature of the development of secure working models. In contrast, dismissing participants' prosodic characteristics were discrepant with the verbal content. These individuals downplayed the nature and impact of negative experiences and emotions, but used a prosody that revealed a high emotional arousal. The difference between the two groups was more evident for participants who had experienced more rejecting parents.

Patterns of emotion regulation at two years of age: associations with mothers' attachment in a fear eliciting situation.

The study aims at identifying patterns of mother-toddler emotion regulation and testing whether they are related to mothers' attachment. An Italian community sample (N = 38; 66% males) was followed longitudinally, with mothers' attachment collected through the Adult Attachment Interview at 14 months of child's age and mothers' and children's emotion regulation behaviors assessed through a fear-eliciting lab procedure when the child turned two years old. Two dyadic regulatory patterns were identified through a two-phased cluster analytic plan. Children characterized by one pattern approached, explored and played with the threatening stimulus, whereas children characterized by the other pattern tended to become frightened by this stimulus and avoided the object. The majority of children whose mothers were classified as secure displayed the first regulatory pattern. This finding contributes to extending understanding of how parental factors can influence the development of self-regulation.

Relationships between regulatory temperament dimensions and self-regulatory behaviors at 4 and 6 months of age.

The present study focused on relationships between temperament and behavior in early regulation development. Unlike most studies on the topic, we observed infant behavior in a naturalistic playful situation rather than in experimental stressful procedure, and employed temperament measures uniquely reflecting regulatory dispositions rather than a global measure of reactivity. The infant's self-regulatory behaviors were observed at 4 and 6 months during face-to-face interactions and regulatory dimensions were assessed at 4 months. We found that low intensity pleasure and soothability dimensions, related to the infant physical and social experience, respectively, significantly affected regulatory behavior and their influence showed to depend on the infant's age, with the former dimension being influential at the earlier age and the latter being influential when the behavior was observed at the later age. Results are interpreted on the light of a dynamic view of regulation development.