Emotion Regulation Related to Children's Future Externalizing and Internalizing Behaviors

PROBLEM: Emotion regulation in children is a construct with important theoretical and clinical implications for healthcare providers, yet currently there is not a reliable and valid instrument that can be easily administered to young children. METHODS: The study was based on interviews with 126 children ages 5.5-12 years from a longitudinal study conducted over 4 years. Reliability, internal construct, and discriminant and predictive validity were examined. FINDINGS: The study was able to distinguish between two types of emotions, sadness and anger, and provided evidence that outcomes may be different for each of these emotion dysregulations. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides empirical evidence that an interview with children as young as 5.5 years can provide researchers with a reliable and valid measure of emotion regulation.