Parenting Style of Emotions Socialization. Theoretic Models and Measurement Instruments

One of the most important social contexts in which the meaningful emotional experiences of a child are built is family. The parent’s responses at the child’s emotions, the family’s emotional climate and the inter-parental relationships are the main factors identified by the theory and practice regarding the emotions socialization within family context (Fosco & Grycg, 2012).Direct emotions socialization is done by parents’ reactions at the children emotions. These supportive or non-supportive reactions, become transferable into the child’s emotional life who, afterwards, manifests them behavioural in relation to itself and the others, depending on the emotional impact of the situations he confronts with. The sensitive, supportive and receptive parents’ reactions to the child’s emotional experiences creates an adequate context for learning the adjustment emotional control skills and the emotional response. Although the subject of emotions socialization presents importance and is relevant in many fields of psychology, there are little studies which examined the specific negative and positive emotions socialization (e.g. fear, fury, happiness), separately by mother and father (Root & Denham, 2010). The present paper synthesizes a series of theoretical models for emotions socialization in family context and present a quantification instrument which operationalizes the mother’s respectively the father’s answers to the internalizing and externalizing emotions of the child.