Is mind-mindedness in mothers, fathers and children related to child adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation?

doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-4959204/v1

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Is mind-mindedness in mothers, fathers and children related to child adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation?

https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-4959204/v1

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Parental mind-mindedness is an important predictor of child development. It is not clear whether parental mind-mindedness is also related to child emotion regulation in school-aged children or whether child mind-mindedness plays a role. The current study aimed to examine maternal, paternal and children’s mind-mindedness in relation to child emotion regulation and to examine the importance of the valence of mind-related comments (positive, neutral or negative). The study had a cross-sectional design. Mothers, fathers and children from eighty-three families with children aged 8–18 years participated in a mind-mindedness interview, and the children completed a questionnaire measuring adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation. There was no significant association between maternal or paternal mind-mindedness and children’s mind-mindedness; however, when valence was taken into account, maternal positive and negative mind-mindedness were significantly associated with paternal positive and negative mind-mindedness, respectively. Additionally, children’s mind-mindedness toward their mother and father were significantly associated. Maternal mind-mindedness was the only significant predictor of children’s adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation: positive and neutral mind-related comments predicted more adaptive emotion regulation, and neutral and negative mind-related comments predicted more maladaptive emotion regulation.

Although it appears possible to reliably measure children’s mind-mindedness, the question remains regarding the meaningfulness of measuring this concept in childhood. The results of the current study suggest that, in school-aged children, mothers’ representational mind-mindedness plays a more significant role in the development of adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation than fathers’ representational mind-mindedness. The valence of mind-related comments seems to matter. However, additional research is needed to determine the directionality of these effects.

Psychology

mind-mindedness

emotion regulation

valence of mind-mindedness

mothers and fathers

children and adolescents

Parental mind-mindedness is a predictor of child development but has not been studied in relation to child-mindedness and emotion regulation.
Child-level mind-mindedness is not related to maternal or paternal mind-mindedness or to child emotion regulation.
Multivariate analyses showed that maternal (not paternal) mind-mindedness is positively associated with child emotion regulation.
The valence of mind-related comments (positive, neutral, negative) seems to matter

Emotion regulation capabilities in children are predictive of later adaptation, social functioning and psychopathology (Eisenberg & Sulik 2012; Rydell et al., 2003). Emotion regulation refers to intentional or spontaneous processes that affect the impact and time of an emotional response on physiological, behavioral and cognitive levels (Gross, 2013). Development of emotion regulation starts in infancy, and continues into adulthood (Eisenberg & Sulik, 2012). The development of emotion regulation abilities is influenced by child temperamental factors, and goes hand-in-hand with increasing cognitive and social capacities (Zeman et al., 2006). However, the development of emotion regulation is not just an unfolding of the potential of the child, but is also being affected by environmental factors, and vice versa, affects those environmental factors. In childhood years, the most important environmental factors that are most influential are parental functioning, parenting behavior, and the parent-child relationship (Morris et al., 2007; 2017). In the current study, a specific parental factor, namely mind-mindedness, a measure of parents’ mentalizing abilities in the parent-child relationship, will be examined as a predictor of child emotion regulation in middle childhood.

Emotion regulation capabilities develop at a rapid pace during the first few years of life. In infancy, children are primarily dependent on their caregivers in the regulation of their emotions (Zeman et al., 2006) while in toddlerhood there is a gradual progress from external regulation to more intrinsic processes that support the regulation of emotions (Eisenberg & Sulik, 2012). The way parents support their children in the regulation of their emotions in early childhood, is predictive of the emotion regulation strategies children will develop later (Kiss et al. 2014). In preschool years, children’s repertoire of emotion regulation strategies increases, becoming better able to adjust their emotional behavior to the specific situation (Eisenberg & Sulik, 2012). Children’s emotion regulation capabilities not only impact on children’s social competency (Blair at al., 2004), but also their academic success and productivity (Graziano et al., 2007).

In middle childhood, there is a further differentiation in emotion regulation strategies and the display of emotions (Zeman et al., 2006). Different emotion regulation strategies take shape, that children are able to report on from the age of 8 years old (Cracco et al., 2015). A self-report questionnaire for the assessment of emotion regulation in children and adolescents (Fragebogen zur Erhebung der Emotionsregulation bei Kindern und Jugenlichen; FEEL-KJ) was developed to measure fifteen different emotion regulation strategies for three different emotions (namely anger, sadness, and anxiety; Grob & Smolenski, 2005). Both adaptive (problem solving, distraction, forgetting, acceptance, humor enhancement, cognitive problem solving, revaluation), and maladaptive (giving up, withdrawal, rumination, self-devaluation, and aggressive actions), and external (expression, social support, and emotional control) emotion regulation strategies can be distinguished when using the FEEL-KJ (Cracco et al., 2015). A meta-analysis on emotion regulation and psychopathology reports that internalizing and externalizing symptoms of psychopathology are negatively related to adaptive regulation strategies and positively related to maladaptive emotion regulation strategies (Compas et al., 2017).

A characteristic of parents that theoretically (Fonagy et al., 2018) and empirically (e.g., has shown to predict child emotion regulation from birth onwards is parents’ mentalizing, parents’ tendency to regard and treat their children as independent psychological agents and to reflect on their children’s mental states (Sharp & Fonagy, 2008). One way to assess mentalizing in parents is to measure their mind-mindedness (Meins, 1997; Meins et al., 2001; Zeegers et al., 2017). Mind-mindedness aims to measure the extent to which parents are able to form a representation of a child’s internal state, by assessing the way they talk to, or about their child (Meins & Fernyhough, 2015). Parents who are well able to see their child as an individual with internal states that may be different than their own, tend to show this ability by making mind-related comments to, or about their child (McMahon & Bernier, 2017). While mind-mindedness of parents with infants and young children are normally measured during a parent-child observation, a way to measure mind-mindedness of parents of older children is by asking them to describe their child using a one-open-question interviews (Meins et al. 1998). This measure, also called representational mind-mindedness indicates parents’ ability to represent their children’s as independent agents with their own mental states and to refer to them (Meins & Fernyhough, 2015). The emotional valence of representational mind-mindedness can also be studied by coding each remark as either positive, neutral or negative (Demers et al., 2010; Larkin et al., 2021).

Mind-mindedness has shown to be predictive of secure child attachment (Zeegers et al., 2017), a better social development (e.g., Aldrich et al., 2021; McMahon & Bernier, 2017), executive functioning (Cheng et al., 2018), language (Laranjo & Bernier, 2013), and less behavioral problems (e.g., Colonnesi et al., 2019). There is some evidence that the emotional valence of mind-mindedness matters, and that associations between parental mind-mindedness and child outcomes differ when positive, neutral, and negative mind-related comments are distinguished. Colonnesi et al. (2022), that studied mind-mindedness in foster parents, found that general, neutral and positive mind-mindedness (but not negative mind-mindedness) showed a negative relation with child conduct problems. Furthermore, this study showed a positive relation between positive mind-mindedness and prosocial behavior, and neutral mind-mindedness and a better quality of the caregiver-child relationship. A relative high proportion of negative valence mind-mindedness may be indicative of high parental stress, a low quality of the parent-child relationship and/or ineffective parental mentalization, (mentalization of child behavior may be mainly negative).

There is little empirical evidence on the association between parental mind-mindedness and child emotion regulation. In a review on mind-mindedness research, it was hypothesized that mind-related comments help parents in co-regulating their children, and that over time, the child internalizes the dialogue with the parent, and thereby develops inner speech that facilitates self-regulation (McMahon & Bernier, 2017). One empirical study did show the predictive value of mind-mindedness on heart rate variability, which is a measure of physiological emotion regulation, in infants aged 4 to 12 months (Zeegers et al., 2018). This was the case for both maternal, and paternal mind-mindedness. Another study looked at the predictive value of father’s mind-mindedness at the child’s age of 18 months, for two constructs related to emotion regulation, namely inhibitory control and rule-compatible conduct at the child’s age of 3 years (Gagné et al., 2018). This study showed that after taking into account child temperament, paternal mind-mindedness was positively related to inhibitory control, but rule-compatible conduct was not. There are no studies showing associations between parental mind-mindedness and emotion regulation in middle childhood.

The study populations in majority of studies on mind-mindedness are mothers and their infants, toddlers and preschoolers. The studies that did include fathers were also mostly focused on the age group of zero to six-year-olds, and not on school-aged children (e.g. Gagné et al., 2018; Miller et al., 2019; Bernier et al., 2023, Colonnesi et al., 2019). In two studies, fathers of children from a broader age range participated, including school-aged children (Fishburn et al., 2017; Larkin et al., 2021). In both studies however, only a small percentage of the parents were fathers, and parents of both sexes were analyzed as one group. Therefore, when looking at the association between father’s mind-mindedness and child functioning, as compared to the association between mother’s mind-mindedness and child functioning, the only data available are based on parents with young children. Most studies found similar results for fathers and mothers: maternal and paternal mind-mindedness were associated positively with child attachment security, theory of mind, and social competence, and negatively with behavior problems (Lundy, 2003; Lundy, 2013; Lundy & Fyfe, 2016; Colonessi et al., 2019). One study showed that paternal mind-mindedness at 6 months was a stronger predictor of father-child secure attachment at 12 months, than maternal mind-mindedness at 6 months for mother-infant secure attachment at 12 months (Arnott & Meins, 2007). In another study in which maternal mind-mindedness was statistically controlled for, paternal mind-mindedness at 18 months was predictive of math and reading at age four, which was mediated by theory of mind, effortful control, and school readiness (Bernier et al., 2023).

In most of these studies, the proportion of mind-mindedness in both parents did not differ (e.g. Colonnesi et al., 2019; Lundy, 2013; Lundy & Fyfe, 2016). In another study in which mind-mindedness was studied in parents of infants, mothers were shown to make more mind-related comments than fathers (Planalp et al., 2019). Moreover, there is evidence of possible complementarity between parents, as one study found that fathers and mothers can compensate each other mind-mindedness to prevent children’s externalizing problems (Colonnesi et al., 2019). Thus, it seems to be that there are no, or only small differences between parents in mind-mindedness and that they compensate each other. In a systematic review on paternal reflective functioning and mind-mindedness, it recommendations for further studies included to address the differences and similarities of the roles played by the parents, and to study the contribution of paternal mind-mindedness not only during infancy and the preschool period, but within different child’s developmental stages. Both these recommendations will be addressed in the current study.

Mind-mindedness in children has also been assessed in just a few studies. It has not been studied in relation to parental mind-mindedness, nor in relation to child emotion regulation, but in relation to children’s social understanding and social functioning (Davis et al., 2014; Meins et al., 2006). These studies showed that children’s mind-mindedness (measured by asking them to describe a friend) was unrelated to performance on a theory of mind task, measuring the knowledge that mental states of other people may differ from one’s own mental states. This result is interesting, because to be able to talk about mental states, children do need to make use of their theory of mind capacities. These results were even more unexpected, as maternal mind-mindedness does predict a more optimal theory of mind development in children (McMahon & Bernier, 2017). Children’s mind-mindedness was also unrelated to behavior problems (Davis et al., 2014).

If parental mind-mindedness would indeed support the development of adaptive emotion regulation strategies in children, the question is whether children’s mind-mindedness could play a role in this. Possibly, by commenting on their child’s inner states regularly, parents may support their children both in understanding their own inner world better, and in understanding other people’s inner states, and the influence of people’s inner states on their behavior. Both may have a positive influence on children’s emotion regulation. Children’s mind-mindedness (measured by asking them to describe their parent) may also reflect the quality of the parent-child relationship.

The current study aimed to examine maternal, paternal and children’s mind-mindedness in a community sample of school-aged children. Also, we aimed to examine associations between maternal, paternal and children’s mind-mindedness, and child emotion regulation. We hypothesized that mind-mindedness of mothers, fathers, and children would be positively associated with each other. Positive associations between family members’ mind-mindedness and children’s adaptive emotion regulation strategies, and negative associations between family members’ mind-mindedness and children’s maladaptive emotion regulation strategies were expected. Lastly, we explored whether parental positive, neutral and negative mind-related comments showed differential associations with child adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation strategies.

Participants

Participants were parents (mother and father) and their biological child between 8 and 18 years of age. The sample of the current study consisted of the control group participants of a larger study investigating mind-mindedness in families of children with AD(H)D (see Meppelink et al., 2016 for details). Families could be included if the child was between 8 and 18 years old, had an (estimated) IQ higher than 80 and no diagnosis of AD(H)D nor a diagnosis in the Autism Spectrum Disorder according to the DSM-5 (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Exclusion criteria were (1) an insufficient knowledge of the Dutch language by the parents and/or child and (2) one of more of the following DSM-5 (American Psychiatric Association, 2013) diagnoses: AD(H)D, Autism Spectrum Disorder, psychosis, or schizophrenia and (3) a diagnosis Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for which the child did not receive any treatment.

The sample of the current study consisted of 83 families, of which 81 mothers, 69 fathers, and 83 children, 53% boy, M_age = 11.30, SD = 2.40 (range = 8–17). Of the participating parents, 55 (67.9%) mothers and 45 (65.2%) fathers were highly educated, having completed a Bachelor’s degree or higher.

Procedure

Participants were recruited via word-of-mouth, flyers, primary school newsletters, social media and science museum [blinded for review]. If interested, participants registered via the website of the study, and subsequently, an email was sent with a number of questions to determine suitability for participation in the study. After approval, each family member received an online questionnaire. Questionnaires were completed at a single time point. Data were collected between January 2018 and April 2018. Both parents provided informed consent to participate in the study, as well as consent for their children. Children aged 12 and above provided informed consent themselves. This study has been approved by the Ethical Review Board of the University of Amsterdam (2017-CDE-8497).

Materials

Children’s emotion regulation. Children’s emotion regulation was assessed using the 90-item FEEL-KJ (Braet et al., 2013; Grob & Smolenski, 2005). Children completed the questionnaire themselves and evaluated their response to three emotions: anxiety, sadness and anger (30 items per emotion). Items were rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale (0 = never to 5 = almost always). Total scores for three emotion regulation strategies are then calculated, namely, (1) Adaptive (including problem solving, cognitive problem solving, distraction, acceptance, forgetting, revaluation and evoking a positive mood), (2) Maladaptive (including withdrawal, giving up, rumination, aggressive actions, and self-devaluation), and (3) External (including expression, social support and emotional control) emotion regulation strategies (Cracco et al, 2015). Examples of questions were “When I am angry/sad/anxious…” (1) “I accept what makes me angry” (Adaptive), (2) “I don’t want to do anything” (Maladaptive), and (3) “I tell someone how I am doing” (External). The Dutch version of the FEEL-KJ has shown to be a reliable and valid tool to assess emotion regulation in children (Cracco et al., 2015). In the current study, the Cronbach’s alphas were .93 for the adaptive emotion regulation scale, .88 for the adaptive emotion regulation scale, and .57 for the external emotion regulation scale. Prior research on the internal structure of the FEEL-KJ found a two-factor structure with Adaptive emotion regulation and Maladaptive emotion regulation as overarching scales, and did not find support for a third overarching scale (Grob & Smolenski, 2005; Cracco et al., 2015). Therefore, and because of the low internal consistency of the External emotion regulation scale, we decided to only include the Adaptive and Maladaptive scales in the current study.

Mind-mindedness. Both parental and child mind-mindedness was assessed with the mind-mindedness interview (Meins et al., 1998), in which they were asked to describe either their child or their father and mother as completely as possible. This question was answered online, and the minimum required length of the answer was 10 sentences. Answers of parents and children were then coded according to the Dutch translation of the coding manual of Meins & Fernyhough (2015) (Zeegers & Colonnesi, 2016). Proportions of mind-mindedness is indexed by the percentage of mind-related comments comparative to the total amount of comments that was made by the parent or child. Furthermore, the valence of the mind-related comments was calculated by classifying the mind-mindedness related comments as either positive, negative, or neutral. The proportions of positive, negative and neutral mind-mindedness comments were the percentages of the total amount of comments made (Demers et al., 2010; Larkin et al., 2021). The interviews of the parents were rated by trained coders (n = 3). The coders independently coded the transcripts with an intraclass correlation reliability of ICC = .91 for the proportion of mind-mindedness, an ICC = 91 for the positive comments, an ICC = 87 for the neutral comments and an ICC = .74 for the negative comments. Two trained coders independently coded the transcripts of the children with an intraclass correlation reliability of ICC = .89 for the proportion of mind-mindedness, an ICC = .86 for the positive comments, an ICC = 81 for the neutral comments and an ICC = .92 for the negative comments.

Data Analyses

Analyses were completed in the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (IBM SPSS version 27.0). The current study included 83 families, of which mind-mindedness data (independent variable) was available for 81 mothers, 69 fathers, 71 children (mind-mindedness about mother) and 68 children (mind-mindedness about father). The data on emotion regulation (dependent variable) was available for 70 children. Because the data had missing values that were not missing completely at random, it was chosen not to impute. There were no extreme outliers detected for the variables. All variables had appropriate skewness and kurtosis values (between − 2 and + 2) for normal distribution.

Next, Pearson’s r correlations were calculated between the proportions of mothers’, fathers’ and children’s (about mother and father) mind-mindedness as well as children’s adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation, and paired t-tests were used to test possible differences between maternal and paternal mind-mindedness, children’s mind-mindedness about mother and children’s mind-mindedness about father, and child adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation.

Subsequently, three three-step hierarchical multiple linear regression analyses were conducted, for which each emotion regulation strategy of the child (adaptive, maladaptive) was analyzed separately as outcome. At Step 1, the covariates (age and gender of the child) were added to the model. Proportions of children’s mind-mindedness about mother and father were added at Step 2, and proportions of mothers’ and fathers’ mind-mindedness were added at Step 3.

In secondary statistical analyses, the valence of parental mind-mindedness related comments were further investigated. Pearson’s r correlations were calculated between the proportions of mothers’ and fathers’ positive, neutral and negative mind-related comments and children’s adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation. Additional hierarchical regression analyses were performed with positive, neutral and negative parental mind-mindedness as predictors of emotion regulation of the child. Adaptive and maladaptive strategies of the child were each analyzed separately as outcome variables. Analyses were conducted separately for maternal and paternal mind-mindedness. At Step 1, age of the child was added to the model because it was a significant predictor for emotion regulation in some of the primary analyses. At Step 2, the variables concerning the valence of mind-mindedness (positive, neutral and negative mind-mindedness) were added. To check whether possible associations could be attributed to the valence of a comment only, and not necessarily the valence of a mind-related comment, these analyses were repeated with in Step 2 positive, neutral and negative comments on behavior.

Table 1 shows the descriptive statistics (mean, SD, range) and Pearson r correlations between the proportions of mothers’, fathers’ and children’s (about mother and father) mind-mindedness as well as children’s adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation. A significant correlation was found between maternal mind-mindedness and adaptive (r = .334, p = .005) and maladaptive (r = − .299, p = .012) emotion regulation of the child. Paternal mind-mindedness was positively associated with adaptive (r = .277, p = .026) emotion regulation of the child. Mind-mindedness of the mother was marginally significantly correlated to mind-mindedness of the father (r = .214, p = .082). We found no significant correlations between the mind-mindedness of both parents and the mind-mindedness of their child. We did not find a difference in proportions of mind-related comments between father and mother, and between child mind-related comments about father and those about mother. The proportion of mind-related comments the mother made about the child were higher than vice versa (t(68) = 5.29, p < .001, d = .64), and this was also the case for the proportion of mind-related comments that the father and child made about each other (t(64) = 4.62, p < .001, d = .57). With regard to child emotion regulation we found a difference between adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation. Children reported more adaptive than maladaptive emotion regulation (t(69) = 9.99, p < .001, d = 1.19).

Table 1

Descriptives of, and correlations between mind-mindedness proportions of mother and father about their child, mind-mindedness child about mother and father, emotion regulation strategies of the child.
	1.	2.	3.	4.	5.	6.
1. MM mother	1	.214^†	.047	.052	.334**	.299*
2. MM father	-	1	− .063	− .162	.277*	− .039
3. MM child about mother	-	-	1	.537***	− .175	.036
4. MM child about father	-	-	-	1	− .129	.258*
5. Adaptive emotion regulation	-	-	-	-	1	.182
6. Maladaptive emotion regulation	-	-	-	-	-	1
N	81	69	71	68	70	70
Mean (SD)	40.3 (13.6)	38.4 (11.5)	27.6 (17.0)	24.2 (19.2)	3.4 (.6)	2.5 (.6)
Range	11.8–75.0	12.5–61.9	0.0-77.8	0.0-85.7	1.4–4.5	1.3–3.7

Note:^†p < .10, *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001 (two-tailed); SD, standard deviation; MM, mind-mindedness.

We checked whether the age or gender of the children showed a relation with mind-mindedness of the family members or children’s emotion regulation. We found no relation between age of the children and paternal mind-mindedness and children’s adaptive or maladaptive emotion regulation. Age of the children was negatively related to maternal mind-mindedness (r = − .237, p = .033), and showed a marginally significant relation with children’s mind-mindedness (child about mother: r = .216, p = .071, child about father: r = .233, p = .056). There was no difference between boys and girls in their own or their parents’ mind-mindedness or their emotional regulation.

Primary analysis: Proportions of mind-mindedness and children’s emotion regulation

Two separate four-step hierarchical multiple linear regression analyses were conducted to predict the three emotion regulation strategies of the child (adaptive, and maladaptive). Table 2 presents the results. Assumptions regarding multicollinearity were met in all regression models, with appropriate tolerance and variance inflation factor values.

Table 2

Hierarchical multiple regression analyses predicting adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation of the child with age and gender of the child (Step 1), proportion of children’s mind-mindedness (Step 2), and proportion of mothers’ and fathers’ mind-mindedness (Step 3).
	Adaptive Emotion Regulation			Maladaptive Emotion Regulation
	Step 1	Step 2	Step 3	Step 1	Step 2	Step 3
	Standardized Beta coefficients			Standardized Beta coefficients
Age	.09	.14	.23	.19	.15	.26*
Gender child	.03	.04	.04	.02	− .06	− .05
MM child about mother	-	− .16	− .18	-	− .18	− .19
MM child about father	-	− .09	− .08	-	.33*	.28^†
MM mother	-	-	.37**	-	-	.38**
MM father	-	-	.16	-	-	− .11
R²	.01	.05	.23	.03	.11	.23
F	.28	.83	2.85	1.09	1.73	2.81
p	.756	.513	.017	.344	.155	.018
ΔR²	-	.04	.18	-	.07	.12
ΔF	-	1.37	6.58	-	2.33	4.55
p ΔF	-	.262	.003	-	.106	.015

Note: MM; proportion of mind-mindedness; ^†p < .10, *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.

Adaptive emotion regulation. The covariates age and gender of the child (Step 1) and children’s mind-mindedness (Step 2) did not account for significant proportions of the variance in adaptive emotion regulation of the child. After entry of mothers’ and fathers’ mind-mindedness at Step 3, the total variance explained by the total model was 23.1%, F (6, 56) = 2.80, p = .019. Introducing the mothers’ and fathers’ mind-mindedness variables explained an additional 17.8% of variance in adaptive emotion regulation, with a significant R² change, F (2, 56) = 6.47, p = .003. In this final model, only the mothers’ mind-mindedness was a significant predictor of adaptive emotion regulation (B (SE) = 1.64 (.557), β = .37, t = 2.94, p = .005, 95% CI [.52, 2.75]). Results are shown in Table 2.

Maladaptive emotion regulation. Next, a hierarchical multiple regression analysis was conducted to predict maladaptive emotion regulation in children (Table 2). Also in these analyses, age and gender of the child (Step 1) and children’s mind-mindedness (Step 2) accounted for an insignificant proportion of the variance in maladaptive emotion regulation. At Step 3, mothers’ and fathers’ mind-mindedness were added to the model, explaining 22.8% of the variance, F (6, 56) = 2.76, p = .020. These two variables explained an additional 12.3% of variance in maladaptive emotion regulation, with a significant R² change, F (2, 56) = 4.47, p = .016. In the final model, the mothers’ mind-mindedness (B (SE) = 1.55 (.60), β = .38, t = 3.02, p = .004, 95% CI [.52, 2.57]) and child’s age (B (SE) = .06 (.03), β = .26, t = 2.05, p = .045, 95% CI [.00, .12]) were significant predictors of maladaptive emotion regulation. Children’s’ mind-mindedness about father was marginally significant as a predictor of maladaptive emotion regulation (B (SE) = .79 (.43), β = .28, t = 1.85, p = .069, 95% CI [-.07, 1.65]).

Secondary analysis: Valence of mind-mindedness (positive, neutral, negative)

Next, valence of mind-mindedness (positive, neutral, negative mind-mindedness) of mother and father were further examined in relation to the emotion regulation of the child. Table 3 presents the descriptive statistics (mean, SD, range) and Pearson r correlations between the positive, neutral and negative mind-mindedness of mothers and fathers and children’s adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation. For mothers, a significant positive correlation was found between neutral mind-mindedness and adaptive emotion regulation of the child (r = .379, p = .001), as well as negative mind-mindedness and maladaptive emotion regulation of the child (r = .311, p = .009). Furthermore, the correlations between mothers’ positive mind-mindedness and adaptive (r = .199, p = .098) emotion regulation of the child were positively marginally significant. The other correlations between the valence of maternal mind-mindedness and child’s emotion regulation were not significant. For fathers, only the correlation between neutral mind-mindedness and children’s adaptive emotion regulation was positive and marginally significant (r = .233, p = .062). There were no differences in positive, neutral, and negative mind-related comments between the parents. Fathers’ and mothers’ positive mind-related comments were significantly correlated (r = .266, p = .029), as were fathers’ and mothers’ negative mind-related comments (r = .251, p = .041). Fathers’ and mothers’ neutral mind-related comments were marginally significantly related (r = .221, p = .072).

Table 3

Descriptives and correlations between valence (proportions positive, neutral, negative) mind-mindedness of mothers and fathers, and emotion regulation strategies of the child.
	1.	2.	3.	4.	5.	6.	7.	8.
1. Positive MM mother	1	− .18	− .15	.27*	.03	.02	.20^†	− .04
2. Neutral MM mother	-	1	− .21^†	.04	.22^†	− .12	.38**	.17
3. Negative MM mother	-	-	1	− .20	− .16	.25*	− .19	.31**
4. Positive MM father	-	-	-	1	− .21^†	− .02	.20	.02
5. Neutral MM father	-	-	-	-	1	− .40**	.23^†	− .01
6. Negative MM father	-	-	-	-	-	1	− .11	− .07
7. Adaptive emotion regulation	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	.18
8. Maladaptive emotion regulation	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1
N	81	81	81	69	69	69	70	70
Mean (SD)	15.7 (10.3)	16.2 (10.4)	8.4 (8.5)	15.6 (8.8)	15.0 (9.7)	7.8 (7.4)	3.4 (.6)	2.5 (.6)
Range	0.0–45.0	0.0-39.1	0.0-35.3	0.0–40.0	0.0-43.8	0.0-26.1	1.4–4.5	1.3–3.7

Note:^†p < .10, *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001 (two-tailed); SD, standard deviation.

We checked whether the age or gender of the children showed a relation with valence of parental mind-mindedness. Age of the children was not associated with parental positive, neutral or negative mind-mindedness, and there was no difference between boys and girls in the percentage of positive, neutral, and negative mind-related comments their parents made. Next, additional hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to assess positive, neutral and negative parental mind-mindedness as predictors of emotion regulation of the child (adaptive and maladaptive).

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Valence of mind-mindedness in mothers. Results of the hierarchical regression analyses predicting children’s adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation – with mothers’ positive, neutral and negative mind-mindedness as predictors are shown in Table 4. The model predicting adaptive emotion regulation of the child was significant at Step 2 and explained 25% of the variance (F(4,65) = 5.41, p = 001). In this model, mothers’ positive (β = .29, p = .011) and neutral (β = .45, p < .001) mind-mindedness were significantly and positively associated with children’s adaptive emotion regulation, but negative mind-mindedness was not. It was checked whether the associations could be attributed to the valence of a comment only, and not to the valence of a mind-related comment, by adding positive, neutral and negative comments on behavior in Step 2. The hierarchical regression model predicting adaptive emotion regulation was not significant. Two coefficients of the model were marginally significant: mothers’ neutral (β = − .24, p = .062) and negative (β = − .22, p = .077) behavior-related comments were negatively related to child adaptive emotion regulation.

Table 4

Hierarchical multiple regression analyses predicting adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation of the child with age of the child (Step 1), proportion of mothers’ positive, neutral and negative mind-mindedness (Step 2) as predictors.
	Adaptive Emotion Regulation		Maladaptive Emotion Regulation
	Step 1	Step 2	Step 1	Step 2
Age	.09	.19	.19	.23*
Positive MM mother	-	.29*	-	.09
Neutral MM mother	-	.45***	-	.36**
Negative MM mother	-	− .02	-	.42**
R²	.01	.25	.03	.23
F	.56	5.41	2.41	4.91
p	.458	.001	.126	.002
ΔR²	-	.24	-	.20
ΔF	-	6.98	-	5.58
p ΔF	-	< .001	-	.002

Note: MM; proportion of mind-mindedness; ^†p < .10, *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.

Next, the model predicting maladaptive emotion regulation of the child was also significant at Step 2 and explained 23.2% of the variance (F(4,65) = 4.90, p = .002). In this model, mothers’ neutral (β = .36, p = .004) and negative (β = .42, p = .001) mind-mindedness were significantly and positively associated with children’s maladaptive emotion regulation, but positive mind-mindedness was not. Child’s age was also significantly and positively associated with maladaptive emotion regulation (β = .23, p = .042). It was checked whether the associations could be attributed to the valence of a comment only, and not to the valence of a mind-related comment, by adding positive, neutral and negative behavior-related comments in Step 2. The hierarchical regression model predicting adaptive emotion regulation was not significant. One coefficient of the model was significant: mothers’ neutral behavior-related comments were negatively related to child maladaptive emotion regulation (β = − .26, p = .048).

< Place Table 4 about here. >

Valence of mind-mindedness in fathers. Results of the hierarchical regression analyses with fathers’ positive, neutral and negative mind-mindedness predicting children’s adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation are shown in Table 5. The hierarchical regression models predicting adaptive and maladaptive regulation of the child were not significant. Examining the coefficients of the models, the proportions of paternal positive (β = .26, p = .042) and neutral (β = .30, p = .037) mind-mindedness were significant predictors of adaptive emotion regulation. It was checked whether the associations could be attributed to the valence of a comment only, and not to the valence of a mind-related comment, by adding positive, neutral and negative comments on behavior in Step 2. The hierarchical regression model predicting adaptive emotion regulation was not significant. One coefficient of the model was significant: fathers’ neutral behavior-related comments were negatively related to child adaptive emotion regulation (β = − .30, p = .022). The hierarchical regression model predicting maladaptive emotion regulation was not significant and none of the coefficients were significant.

Table 5

Hierarchical multiple regression analyses predicting adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation of the child with age of the child (Step 1), proportion of fathers’ positive, neutral and negative mind-mindedness (Step 2) as predictors.
	Adaptive Emotion Regulation		Maladaptive Emotion Regulation
	Step 1	Step 2	Step 1	Step 2
	Standardized beta coefficients
Age	.04	− .01	.21	.21
Positive MM father		.26*		.001
Neutral MM father		.30*		− .07
Negative MM father		.01		− .08
R²	.001	.12	.04	.05
F	.08	2.01	2.79	.773
p	.783	.105	.100	.547
ΔR²	-	.12	-	.01
ΔF	-	2.65	-	.14
p ΔF	-	.057	-	.937

Note: MM; proportion of mind-mindedness; ^†p < .10, *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.

The current study aimed to examine maternal, paternal and children’s mind-mindedness and emotion regulation in a community sample of school-aged children. We did not find a significant relation between maternal, paternal and children’s mind-mindedness but when valence was taken into account, maternal positive and negative mind-mindedness was significantly associated with paternal positive and negative mind-mindedness, respectively. Also, child mind-mindedness about mother and father were associated significantly. Maternal mind-mindedness (specifically positive and neutral mind-mindedness) was the only significant predictors of children’s adaptive emotion regulation: more positive and neutral mind-related comments predicted more adaptive emotion regulation in children. Maternal mind-mindedness (specifically neutral and negative mind-mindedness) and children’s age were the only significant predictor of children’s maladaptive emotion regulation: more neutral and negative mind-related comments and a higher age predicted more maladaptive emotion regulation in children.

The proportion of child mind-mindedness about mother and about father showed a significant correlation, but this correlation was not perfect. This suggests that mind-mindedness in children cannot be seen as a trait-like characteristic, but that also in children, mind-mindedness is an index of the quality of the relationship between the child and the concerned parent (Meins et al., 2014). A prior study showed that children’s mind-mindedness in two different tasks (book narration and describing a best friend) also showed a significant positive correlation (Meins et al., 2006). The proportion of child mind-related comments (about mother 28% and about father 24%) was lower that the proportion of maternal (40%) and paternal (38%) mind-related comments. This suggests that children’s mind-mindedness is still in development.

The current study did not support the hypothesis that parents’ mind-mindedness and children’s mind-mindedness are associated. Neither did the current study find support for the hypothesis that child mind-mindedness would be related to child emotion regulation. Lastly, the current study found no correlations between children’s mind-mindedness and age and gender. Earlier studies on mind-mindedness in children reported null results as well: children’s mind-mindedness was shown to be unrelated to theory of mind, behavior problems, age, verbal ability and overall verbosity (Davis et al., 2014; Meins et al., 2006). The combination of these results may raise the question how meaningful the concept of mind-mindedness is in childhood.

We expected that child mind-mindedness and mind-mindedness of both parents would be associated with child adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation. In the univariate analyses, we indeed found correlations between both parents’ mind-mindedness and child emotion regulation. However, in the regression analyses predicting child adaptive emotion regulation, maternal mind-mindedness was the only significant predictor. Contrary to the result of the current study, in prior studies, significant associations between paternal mind-mindedness and child physiological emotion regulation, inhibitory control, effortful control, and social-emotional problems were found (Zeegers et al., 2018; Gagné et al., 2018; Bernier et al., 2023; Laflamme et al., 2022). These studies focused on infants and toddlers. Possibly, the predictive value of father’s mind-mindedness decreases over time. An alternative explanation for the difference in results is that mind-mindedness measured during free-play interaction between parent and child may shows a stronger association with emotion regulation-related child outcomes than representational mind-mindedness. In a systemic review on paternal reflective functioning and mind-mindedness, it was suggested that paternal mind-mindedness may play an important indirect role in predicting child outcomes, and that other paternal aspects may mediate these indirect effects (Charpentier Mora et al., 2023).

The positive association between maternal mind-mindedness and child adaptive emotion regulation may imply that maternal mind-mindedness has a positive influence on the development of adaptive emotion regulation strategies in children. Given the cross-sectional nature of the current study though, an alternative explanation of this finding is that when children tend to make use of adaptive emotion regulation strategies, this may have a positive effect on parental stress, and parenting mentalizing abilities. However, in mothers of infants, 7-month infant temperament behavior was unrelated to 7-month maternal mind-mindedness that was measured in a free-play situation, suggesting that maternal mind-mindedness is not dependent on either easy or difficult temperament behavior (Meins et al., 2011). However, it is possible that a child-to-parent effect is present later in childhood or adolescence.

When the valence of the mind-related comments was taken into account, it was shown that maternal positive and neutral mind-related comments were associated with child adaptive emotion regulation, while maternal neutral and negative mind-related comments were related to child maladaptive emotion regulation. It was checked whether similar associations were found between behavior-related comments (positive, neutral, negative) and adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation. This was not the case. This may imply that positive mind-related comments (not merely positive comments) may support a child in developing adaptive emotion regulation strategies, negative mind-related comments (not merely negative comments) may increase the child’s tendency to use maladaptive emotion regulation strategies, while the role of neutral mind-related comments seems to be less clear. Prior studies on parental mind-mindedness and child emotion regulation did not differentiate between positive, neutral and negative mind-related comments, but the valance of mind-related comments was studied in relation to other child and parent outcomes. Positive mind-related comments have shown to be positively associated with child prosocial behavior (Colonnesi et al., 2022), parental sensitivity (Demers et al., 2010; McMahon & Meins, 2012), and negatively associated with child conduct problems (Colonnesi et al., 2022) and a perception of the child as difficult (Demers et al., 2010). Neutral mind-mindedness was shown to be positively related to a better quality of the caregiver-child relationship in foster families (Colonnesi et al., 2022). The combination of these results suggest that it is important to differentiate between positive, neutral and negative mind-mindedness.

An alternative explanation of the results with regard to the valence is that parents of children score high on adaptive emotion regulation and low on maladaptive emotion regulation may tend to form more positive representations of their children than parents of children who score low and high on adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation. Child emotion dysregulation has been shown to be a risk factor for parenting stress (Williford et al., 2007), and parenting stress may be a risk factor for lower mind-mindedness (Demers et al., 2010; McMahon & Meins, 2012). Possibly, compared to interactional mind-mindedness, representational mind-mindedness, and especially the valence of representational mind-related comments, is influenced more by child factors. Another result of the current study also seems to suggest that the valence of parents’ representational mind-related comments could be influenced by child factors: while the proportion of mind-related comments of both parents was not significantly correlated in the current study, both positive and negative mind-related comments of mothers did show a significant positive correlation with positive and negative mind-related comments of the father, respectively. Illingworth et al. (2016) studied stability over time and consistency across relationships of both interactional and representational mind-mindedness in mothers of children aged 2 to 10 years. Interactional mind-mindedness was both stable and consistent, and thus seems to be a cognitive-behavioral trait of the mother. Representational mind-mindedness was stable over time, but inconsistent across relationships. The authors conclude that representational mind-mindedness can be seen as a specific relational construct (Illingwoirth et al., 2016). Future studies with longitudinal designs should shed more light on the directionality of the associations between positive and negative mind-mindedness and child emotion regulation.

The current study found similar proportions of mind-mindedness in both parents. Prior research, including studies on both observational and representational mind-mindedness, also did not show significant differences in proportion of mind-mindedness between fathers and mothers (Colonnesi et al., 2019; Lundy, 2013; Lundy & Fyfe, 2016). These studies included children up to the age of 4 years old. The results of the current study suggest that a difference in mind-mindedness between mothers and fathers is still absent in middle aged children and adolescents.

Strengths and limitations

The current study had several strengths and limitations. Strengths were the measurement of mind-mindedness in both parents of middle school aged children and adolescents, and of mind-mindedness in children and adolescents, a combination that has not been assessed in prior research. Another strength was the attention for the valence of mind-related comments. The main limitation of this study was the cross-sectional design, which made it impossible to draw conclusions on the directionality of effects. In before mentioned systemic review on paternal reflective functioning and mind-mindedness, it was suggested to study more complex models that take into account the circularity of effects between mind-mindedness and other parental factors, and child psychological and psychopathological development (Charpentier Mora et al., 2023). Furthermore, the measurement of representational mind-mindedness only, and of self-report emotion regulation only is a limitation. Future research should further examine the validity and scientific value of the measurement of (the development of) mind-mindedness in children. Future studies should also include more than one measurement occasion in which all outcomes are measured, and also include the valence of mind-related comments, so that possible bidirectional effects can be studied. Furthermore, it may be good to more often measure interactional mind-mindedness in school-aged children, which is unusual in this age group, and to complement self-reported emotion regulation with a parent- and teacher reported measure of child emotion regulation.

Practical implications

The results of the current study suggest that especially mother’s mind-mindedness may be important for the development of emotion regulation abilities of children, and that in case of child emotion regulation problems, it may be that offering a mentalisation-based parenting intervention may be of added value (next to, or instead of child treatment) (Lavender et al., 2023). Mentalisation-based parenting interventions are often directed at parents with psychopathology or who are at risk for developing parenting problems (Camoirano, 2017). The current study suggests that child problems may also be a reason to offer such an intervention. The content of a mentalisation-based parenting intervention should not only focus on mentalisation itself, but also on the valence of mentalisation, supporting parents in increasing positively valenced and decreasing negatively valenced mentalisation.

In conclusion, this was the first study in which both parents and children’s mind-mindedness was measured, which were shown to be unrelated. Although it did seem to be possible to reliably measure children’s mind-mindedness, the question remained how meaningful the concept of mind-mindedness is in childhood. The results of the current study suggest that in school-aged children, mother’s representational mind-mindedness is more important for the development of adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation in children that father’s representational mind-mindedness. The valence of mind-related comments seems to matter: maternal positive and neutral mind-related comments was related to child adaptive emotion regulation, while maternal neutral and negative mind-related comments was related to child maladaptive emotion regulation. More research is needed to study the directionality of the effects.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Is mind-mindedness in mothers, fathers and children related to child adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation?

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Abstract

Highlights

Introduction

Methods

Participants

Procedure

Materials

Data Analyses

Results

Primary analysis: Proportions of mind-mindedness and children’s emotion regulation

Secondary analysis: Valence of mind-mindedness (positive, neutral, negative)

Discussion

Strengths and limitations

Practical implications

Conclusions

References

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