Assessing parental emotion regulation in the context of parenting: A systematic review

Despite a need for developmental and clinical research to understand how parents regulate their emotions in the context of parent–child interaction, empirical studies of parental emotion regulation (ER) have predominantly relied on general models and measures of adult ER. To address this gap, the present systematic review aimed to identify studies that examined parental ER in the context of parenting, and to evaluate how ER was defined and operationalized, how specific measurement contexts were established, what types of methods were involved, and the state of evidence on their reliability and validity. A systematic search in five databases yielded 91 studies that adopted assessments capturing different facets and processes of parental ER, highlighting the importance of conceptual clarity in integrating empirical findings and developing new research. Results also suggested that most studies relied on a single method or source to assess parental ER, and further evidence is needed to support the reliability and validity of many measures. Compared to general measures of adult ER, the assessments identified in this review were situated within the recollection of past parenting experiences and real-time actual or hypothetical parenting situations, allowing researchers to capture parenting demands and accommodate developmental characteristics in parent–child relationships. This review presents a toolbox for researchers interested in examining parental ER as context-specific processes and provides recommendations to move the field in a more conceptually sound and methodologically rigorous direction.