Parental playfulness and children's emotional regulation: the mediating role of parents' emotional regulation and the parent-child relationship

Parental playfulness describes a parent's ability to act in a spontaneous, amusing, flexible and creative manner in different parent-child situations. This study examined the hypothesis that parental playfulness promotes children's emotional skills and thus should be related to improved emotion regulation and lower anxiety. A sample of 137 parents of children aged 2-8 self-reported on their parental playfulness levels, their own emotion regulation ability, levels of parent-child closeness and conflicts, and their children's emotion regulation and anxiety levels. Parental playfulness was associated with improved emotion regulation in their children. This association was mediated by the parent's emotional awareness and the level of parent-child closeness. These findings underscore the importance of parental playfulness for the children's emotional skills and the parent-child relationship.