Emotion regulation related to children's future externalizing and internalizing behaviors.

PROBLEM

Emotion regulation in children is a construct with important theoretical and clinical implications for healthcare providers, yet currently there is not a reliable and valid instrument that can be easily administered to young children.

METHODS

The study was based on interviews with 126 children ages 5.5-12 years from a longitudinal study conducted over 4 years. Reliability, internal construct, and discriminant and predictive validity were examined.

FINDINGS

The study was able to distinguish between two types of emotions, sadness and anger, and provided evidence that outcomes may be different for each of these emotion dysregulations.

CONCLUSIONS

This study provides empirical evidence that an interview with children as young as 5.5 years can provide researchers with a reliable and valid measure of emotion regulation.