Physiological reactions may be preprogrammed in a child?s brain, but parenting techniques can teach them to manage those responses.

By Beth Azar
Monitor Staff

When infants become upset or overly excited, they need help from their parents to help them deal with their emotions. A mother might soothe her frightened and crying son with a hug or by gently rocking him. Or a father might distract his overly stimulated daughter by reading her a book or singing a song.

Little by little, children learn to regulate their own emotions with techniques that can include calming themselves with their favorite blanket when they?re sad; avoiding situations that scare them, such as a spooky cartoon or walking past a bully at school; or controlling their excitement over tomorrow?s birthday party by focusing their thoughts on a special toy or special project.

Although psychologists believe the ability to regulate emotions is critical to normal child development, research that pinpoints how and when the process evolves is still in its infancy.

So far, the research suggests that individuals differ in their ability to self-regulate emotions, and that those differences contribute to children?s eventual level of social success, acting out and aggression.

Children who have trouble controlling their emotions?those who become inordinately frustrated or angry when stressed, who withdraw when nervous, or who become overly excited by a new toy or happy event?have more trouble interacting with their peers and care givers, studies find. But preliminary research also indicates that parents may be able to help children learn to deal appropriately with their emotions.

Defining the problem

Children who have trouble regulating their emotions, tend to have behavioral problems, studies find. Arizona State University psychologists Nancy Eisenberg, PhD and Richard Fabes, PhD, and their colleagues have found that poorly regulated children act out more than well-regulated children, as reported by their parents and teachers.

The psychologists have also found links between measures of emotion regulation?including attention focusing, low impulsivity and behavioral inhibition?and high peer status, socially appropriate behavior, social competence at school, sympathy and prosocial behavior.

The strength of the connection between children?s behavior problems and their ability to regulate their emotions may be influenced by individual differences in the intensity of their emotional reactions. Eisenberg and Fabes have found that emotion regulation is more important for children prone to intense emotional reactions.

In one study of elementary school children, they found that, in general, children with high self-regulation were more socially competent than those with poor self-regulation, said Eisenberg. However, self-regulation was a greater predictor of social competence for intensely emotional children than for less emotionally intense children.

Studies have also found a connection between individual differences in children?s reactions to emotional situations and their ability to modulate the intensity and duration of their emotions. Studies of temperament, for example, find that infants who react to stress with high degrees of physiological arousal and overt distress tend to have difficulty calming down once aroused.

Other infants are less aroused by stress and are able to easily make the transition from distress to composure or even joy.

But it?s not simply that high arousal equals poor regulation, said Pamela Coles, PhD, of Pennsylvania State University.

Studies by Coles, psychologist Carolyn Zahn-Waxler, PhD, of the National Institute of Mental Health and their colleagues find that poor regulation can also be associated with underarousal.

In a recent study, they measured emotional reactions to several videotaped stories in 79 preschoolers with varying degrees of behavior problems. The stories were about ?Zudock,? a child who lived on another planet. Each story represented one of four emotions?joy, sadness, anger and fear?and included topics such as a birthday party, a dying grandfather, a parent-child argument and an evening thunderstorm.

The researchers found that most of the children showed a well-modulated response to the videos. However, one group of children showed no physiological arousal?as measured by heart rate and skin conductance?or facial expressions. Another group was highly expressive during the videos, displaying extreme physiological arousal and facial expressions, compared with the well-modulated children.

Both the highly expressive and the inexpressive group showed more signs of externalizing symptoms, such as disruptive and aggressive behavior, than a group of children who showed a well-modulated response to the video.

The frontal cortex

Work linking certain patterns of brain activation with mood may shed some light on the complex link between arousal and emotion regulation.

Nathan Fox, PhD, of the University of Maryland, College Park, centers his studies of emotion regulation on differences in activity in the frontal cortex, which is involved in many aspects of conscious and unconscious processing.

The model he works with suggests that overactivation or underactivation in the two sides of the frontal cortex are associated with differences in approach and withdrawal behaviors. The model suggests that:

? Overactivation of the right frontal cortex should be related to withdrawal and the expression of negative emotions.

? Underactivation of the right frontal cortex should be related to the inability to experience negative emotion. (Fox believes that this may reflect an inability to respond to punishment).

?Overactivation in the left frontal cortex should be related to exploratory behaviors and positive emotions.

?Underactiva-

tion in the left frontal cortex should be related to an inability to experience positive emotion?what some researchers believe is associated with depression.

Data from two groups of 90 infants show that 9-month-old infants who showed unusually high levels of positive emotions when they were 4-months old had the most active left frontal cortices, compared with other babies. Infants who had highly negative reactions showed greater activity in their right frontal cortices, confirming the model. In another study, a group of toddlers who had high levels of aggression and angry behavior showed underactivity in the right frontal cortex, said Fox.

He adds that it?s unclear from these data whether the patterns of brain activity reflect or cause the behavioral differences in these children.

Parenting can help

Although measures of brain activity seem ruled by biology, Fox has preliminary evidence that parenting can help children at risk for poor emotion regulation.

Several studies, including one by psychologist Jay Belsky, PhD of Pennsylvania State University, have found that some children who show high levels of negative affect and distress in infancy remain stable in their behavior as they age. But others become more positive and less distressed.

Whether children maintain a fearful or inhibited temperament seems related to how parents respond to their youngster?s negative emotions, said Fox. In general, the parents whose children?s emotional style improved used two strategies:

? Until their children were about 1 year and a half old, the parents tried to soothe their children when they became distressed by holding them, talking to them and trying to distract their attention from upsetting events.

? When their children are about 2 years old, the parents began to introduce their children to novel and unfamiliar events?situations that can be stressful to these types of children. They forced their children into uncomfortable circumstances but remain close by as a safe base for their children to return to if their emotions got too difficult to handle.

For example, one mother took her daughter to the circus, even though the girl was afraid of clowns. She sat close to her but didn?t coddle her.

?Contrary to what we thought we?d find, these parents are not overprotective,? said Fox. Instead, they help their children develop strategies to cope with their internal arousal system.

?They walk a fine balance between catering to the child?s internal arousal system and providing coping strategies, such as verbal and cognitive strategies and time outs,? said Fox. ?And they use sensitization by putting them in unfamiliar and novel situations but also providing a safe haven.?

Other studies find that how parents deal with their own emotions, as well as those of their children, can affect how children express and deal with their feelings.

Eisenberg and her colleagues have found that if mothers discouraged their sons from expressing sadness and anxiety, the boys reported low distress when viewing a sad video clip.

At the same time, they showed signs of considerable physiological arousal and displayed somewhat more facial distress than other boys.

There is mounting evidence that children have more problems socially if their parents discourage them from displaying negative emotions such as sadness or fear, said Eisenberg.

In contrast, having parents who encourage emotional expression and who acknowledge and talk about their own feelings helps children understand emotions, encourages constructive coping and empathy in children and is associated with social competence, she said.