Project Summary. Poverty has a strong negative impact on children's socioemotional development, through the mediating process of acute life stress and parents' concomitant use of harsh and coercive disciplinary practices. Although these grave, negative consequences of poverty have been identified, it is less clear what mechanisms underlie economically disadvantaged parents' positive socialization of young children's optimal self-regulatory skills. Given that behavioral problems associated with emotional dysregulation may have their etiologies early in childhood and that approximately 25% of American children under the age of 6 live in poverty, it is particularly important to identify parental efforts that may protect young children from developing these difficulties. This study tests the relations between positive parenting, children's development of emotional self-regulation skills, and children's social competence among 180 low-income families, using a prospective, longitudinal design. Specifically, parents' positive emotional socialization practices are hypothesized to be predictive of preschoolers' skills in effectively regulating their own emotions during delay-of-gratification tasks, 8 months later. Preschoolers' emotion regulation skills, in turn, are hypothesized to be predictive of concurrent ratings of sociometric status by peers and both concurrent and longitudinal ratings of competence, externalizing behavior and internalizing behaviors, by preschool and Kindergarten teachers. In addition, because recent research suggests that low attentional control and high negative emotionality influence young children's encounters with parents and peers, the moderating role of these dimensions of temperament will also be tested. %%% Project Justification. Children's healthy development is considerably threatened by poverty: recent research suggests that young children in poverty show greater social and emotional difficulties than their middle-income counterparts, and that these difficulties persist throughout the school years. Because approximately 25% of American children under the age of 6 live at or below the poverty line, the deleterious consequences of poverty are of particularly pressing concern. It appears that it is not income itself, but the cumulative effect of the multiple risks associated with poverty, including harsh and punitive parenting, that is associated with these grave, negative childhood outcomes. Yet it is not known what the mechanisms are that underlie economically-disadvantaged parents' positive socialization of young children's resilience. In this light, sensitive, nurturant caregiving may represent a wise investment made by parents facing financial disadvantage. This longitudinal research aims to take a first step in this direction by mapping out the specific mechanisms that link 1) positive steps parents take to socialize young children's regulation of their emotions, 2) preschoolers' skills in effectively regulating their emotions without adults' help, and 3) preschoolers' social competence in the classroom.
