Families and Emotion Regulation (R01 Pilot)

This project was interested in learning more about how mothers’ own mental health, difficult life experiences, trauma, and parenting styles influence the development of preschoolers’ ability to regulate their own emotions and stressful experiences. In order to understand how a mother’s own mental health experiences influence their children, we recruited families from a range of backgrounds. In our study, some mothers will have experienced very few mental health symptoms and difficult life experiences, while other mothers will have experienced very serious mental health issues and significant difficult life experiences. This was a longitudinal project, so the families came in for their follow-up assessment 2 years after their original participation.