Emotion regulation, parental stress and family functioning: Families of children with disabilities vs normative families.

Childhood disability is a major challenge for families. The aim of the present study was to explore differences between families of children with disabilities and normative families, analyzing the association of emotion dysregulation with relationship satisfaction, through parental stress and interparental conflict, using supportive dyadic coping by oneself (SDCO) as a moderator. For a sample of 445 Romanian parents, results showed higher levels of parental stress and interparental conflict and lower relationship satisfaction in families of children with disabilities compared to normative families, as well as a direct relationship between parental stress and relationship satisfaction and a stronger direct effect for SDCO with relationship satisfaction. For normative families, SDCO moderated the relationship between emotion dysregulation and parental stress, and for families of children with disabilities SDCO interacted on the link between emotion dysregulation and relationship satisfaction. Only families of children with disabilities presented indirect effects between emotion dysregulation and relationship satisfaction through parental stress, moderated by SDCO. These effects increased in impact as the use of SDCO was higher. Conditional indirect effects by SDCO were also found for the link between emotion dysregulation and relationship satisfaction through interparental conflict for both families, with this effect being higher in families of children with disabilities. These findings highlight the need to implement specific programs that can adjust to the needs of these families, strengthening parents' emotional competencies, as well as stress and conflict management abilities.