Daily Profiles of Parents' Supportive Extrinsic Emotion Regulation of Adolescents' Negative Emotion

Parental support for adolescent emotion regulation is critical for adolescents' health. Yet, little is known about parents' daily support of adolescents' emotion regulation. This study aimed to typify daily co-parent supportive extrinsic emotion regulation (EER) profiles directed toward adolescents' daily distress and anger. The sample comprised 153 adolescent-parent triads; adolescents' mean age, 15.71 years (SD = 1.53), 51% girls. Over 7 consecutive days, adolescents self-reported their distress and anger, while parents reported their own negative emotions and their perception of the adolescent's negative emotions. Parents also reported daily on their utilization of seven supportive EER strategies, including problem- and emotion-focused strategies. Multilevel latent profile analysis (MLPA) identified four day-level profiles of parental EER; "low" (40% of days), reflecting low EER efforts of both parents across all EER strategies: "high" (12%), reflecting high EER involvement of both parents across all strategies; "mother-high father-low" (26%), reflecting mothers' high and fathers' low use of all strategies; "father-high mother-average" (22%), reflecting fathers' high use of all strategies, and mothers' low to average use of all strategies. The likelihood of specific EER profiles across days did not associate with daily changes in adolescents' anger. However, on days when adolescents felt more distress, the likelihood of a "high" parental EER profile was significantly greater than "low." Findings suggest a dynamic repertoire of co-parent EER profiles, responsive to adolescent heartfelt emotions but not hostility. The lack of parental EER of adolescents' anger might put adolescents at increased risk for anger escalation and the unhealthy discharge of anger.