Emotion Regulation and Physiological Reactivity in the Parent-Child Relationship: A Preliminary Study of an Online Attachment-Based Program for Parents of Preadolescents with Behavioral Disorders

TL;DR

This study explores how an online parenting program affects emotional regulation in parents and preadolescents with behavioral disorders, finding improvements in self-reported emotions but not in physiological responses.

Contribution

The study introduces preliminary evidence on the effectiveness of an online attachment-based program in improving emotional regulation in parents and children.

Findings

Parents showed reduced emotion dysregulation from pre-intervention to 6-month follow-up.

Preadolescents reported lower negative emotions and emotion intensity after the intervention.

Physiological responses did not align with self-reported improvements in emotional regulation.

Abstract

Behavioral disorders have been defined as a “health crisis” of modern times that has a significant impact on the parent-child relationship. In this scenario, the emotional regulation (ER) of each partner plays a central role and serves a protective factor, configuring as an area to intervene. The Connect Parent Group, an attachment-based intervention for parents, has shown evidence of effectiveness. However, its online version (e-Connect) has not yet garnered specific evidence related to emotional and physiological regulation in parents and preadolescents.

This study aimed to explore changes in the short and medium term regarding ER abilities - both self-reported and measured through physiological indices - in parents and preadolescents with behavioral disorders, building upon initial findings from an online parenting intervention.

28 parents (82.1% mothers, 17.9% fathers, M_age = 47.48, SD = 4.73) and their 28 preadolescents with behavioral disorders (M_age = 11.22 years, SD = 2.69, 35.7% girls) were recruited from child neuropsychiatry services in Northern Italy and subsequently took part in the pilot study. They were assessed at three time points: before intervention (T1), one months after the intervention (T2) and at 6-months follow-up (T3). ER were assessed with a multimethod approach: parents and children completed a self-report questionnaire (i.e., Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale and How I Feel, respectively) and then they interact during a stress-task in which physiological parameters (i.e., Galvanic Skin Response, GSR; Heart Rate/Beat per Minute, BPM) have been measured.

Regarding self-reported ER, mixed-effects regression models showed an improvement in parent emotion dysregulation between T1 and T3 (p=0.004), a decrease in preadolescents’ negative emotions (p=.012) between T1 and T2 and a lower emotion intensity in preadolescents between the three-time points (p=.003). Regarding physiological ER, the two overall models of GSR and BPM were not significant for both parents and children. Yet GSR correlations within three-time points were positive and significant for children (T1-T2: r=.58; T1-T3: r=.68) but not for parents, while BPM correlations between T1 and T2 were significant for parents (r=.49) but not for children.

The online attachment-based parenting program appears to have contributed to a reduction in emotional dysregulation in parents and preadolescents, which seems to persist to some extent in the medium term. The non-significant results at the physiological level may suggest that changes reported by parents and children through self-report questionnaires do not align with changes in the physiological response to interpersonal stress experienced after an online intervention. Clinical and research implications will be discussed.

None Declared