Somatic Complaints in Early Adolescence: The Role of Parents' Emotion Socialization

This study investigated the relationship between parent emotion socialization and youth somatic complaints (SC) in an early adolescent sample using a longitudinal experimental design. An emotion-focused parenting intervention, which taught parent's skills to improve their emotional competence and emotion socialization, was used to examine whether changes in parent emotion socialization affected the young person's SC. Questionnaires were completed prior to intervention and 10 months later by 225 youth (121 intervention) and their parents. Results indicated that changes in parents' awareness and regulation of emotion and emotion socialization practices resulted in reduced youth SC. These findings have important implications for the prevention of SC.