Parental marital conflict and child coercion/aggression in Chinese families: Which parental emotion regulatory strategy is protective?

Parental marital conflict is linked to child maladjustment, including child coercion/aggression (Cui & Fincham, 2010). The present study was designed to examine whethe rmothers’ use of different emotion regulatory strategies, particularly emotion suppressionand cognitive reappraisal (Gross, 2013), might lessen the negative impact of parental marital conflict on child coercion/aggression. Ten preschools in Hong Kong, China, were strategically recruited to sample families with second-year preschool children from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds (N = 369). Using standardized questionnaires, mothers reported on marital conflict and their tendencies tosuppress their emotions and to actively usetheir thoughts to change their emotional status. Class teachers reported on children’s coercion/aggression. Multilevel modeling revealed that parental marital conflict was positively linked to child coercion/aggression when mothers reported infrequent, but not frequent, use of cognitive reappraisal. Discussion will focus on how parents and practitioners may protect children from being affected by conflictual family dynamics (Charney, 2014).