Development and validation of the short parent-child emotion communication questionnaire

How parents value and address emotions with their children is essential for children's emotion socialization. This study developed and validated the short Parent-Child Emotion Communication questionnaire (PEC), which measures the extent to which parents appreciate emotions, consciously discuss their own and their child's emotions with their children, reflecting on both positive and negative emotions, and address the impact of emotion expression on social relationships. Parents of 316 preschoolers (M-age = 3.86 years) participated. Factor structure, measurement invariance across sex, and internal consistency of the PEC were assessed. Four indices for parents' talk about a child's emotional episode, and children's social-emotional skills are tested for criterion and concurrent validity. The results confirmed the one-factor structure of the 8-item PEC, measurement invariance across boys and girls, and seemed to support the criterion/concurrent validity. The PEC thus may provide a tool to examine parent-child emotion communication in early childhood. Clinical implications of using the PEC are discussed.