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Understanding Relationships Among Responsive Parenting, Internalizing in Children and Emotionality

Understanding Relationships Among Responsive Parenting, Internalizing in Children and Emotionality 1024 576 JoAnna Pendergrass, DVM

A new study offers insights in the complex interplay among negative emotionality, internalizing problems and parental responsivity in very young children.

Positive responsive parenting can benefit children aged 3 to 5 years with internalizing problems, especially those with average to high levels of negative emotionality, according to recent research led by Amanda Thompson, PhD, a developmental psychologist and postdoctoral research fellow in the Fontanella Lab in the Center for Suicide Prevention and Research at Nationwide Children’s Hospital.

Internalizing problems, such as anxiety and depression, reflect the inner psychological state resulting from negative emotions. They can manifest differently according to a child’s age, with young children more often exhibiting somatic symptoms (e.g., headaches) while older children tend to become more withdrawn.

Negative emotionality is a heritable temperament trait characterized by a tendency to experience strong negative emotions.

“Children with negative emotionality become more easily upset and are more difficult to soothe,” Dr. Thompson says, adding that these children have a greater need for responsive parenting to learn adaptive coping skills.

Studies have demonstrated a bidirectional relationship between internalizing problems and parental responsivity in late childhood and adolescence. “Children are affected by, and affect, parents,” Dr. Thompson says.

This bidirectional relationship is critical at a very young age to help children regulate their emotions. However, neither the bidirectional relationship nor how negative emotionality moderates it has been studied in very young children.

Dr. Thompson and her team conducted a longitudinal secondary analysis of pre-existing data collected as part of the Future Families and Child Wellbeing (FFCW) study. Their results were published in the Journal of Family Psychology.

The FFCW study followed approximately 4,900 children of primarily unmarried parents from birth until age 21, born between 1998 and 2000. The parents, children’s teachers, and the children themselves (when age-appropriate) completed questionnaires regarding the children’s physical and mental health and home environment.

Researchers conducted 1-hour in-home observations to observe parental engagement with the children. They also used various assessments to evaluate parental responsivity and child internalizing problems and negative emotionality. This study examined these associations when children were 3, 5 and 9 years old.

“Data analysis revealed that more internalizing problems in very young children preceded less responsive parenting, regardless of negative emotionality,” Dr. Thompson says. In other words, when parents were less responsive, children tended to have more internalizing symptoms.

She further explained that for 3-year-old children with internalizing problems, parents demonstrated less warm and affectionate responsive parenting when the children were 5 years old, possibly because it can be challenging to recognize and respond to these problems.

Higher responsive parenting at ages 3 and 5 years was associated with lower internalizing problems at 5 and 9 years, respectively, meaning that parents’ responsivity was generally protective against internalizing problems at all ages.

For very young children with average to high negative emotionality, more responsive parenting preceded lower levels of internalizing problems as the children aged.

However, responsive parenting was not significantly associated with internalizing problems for younger children with lower levels of negative emotionality. At older ages (5 to 9 years), there were no differences in the association between responsive parenting and children’s internalizing problems depending on their level of negative emotionality.

“This finding aligns with the biological sensitivity to context theory, which explains that heritable traits make us more sensitive to positive and negative early caregiver experiences,” says Dr. Thompson.

Overall, Dr. Thompson suggests that teaching positive adaptive parenting behaviors can be especially beneficial for children with internalizing problems, emphasizing the importance of observing a child’s internalizing problems and parental responsivity across childhood development.

Importantly, parents’ supportive response to children’s anxiety or depression may be especially helpful for some children and at younger ages.

Her future research plans include investigating how children aged 5 to 10 years express early suicidal thoughts and behaviors.

“It can be difficult for parents to recognize and respond adaptively to internalizing problems, especially in older children, so it is important to teach parents how to respond to children with self-harming thoughts and behaviors,” she says.

 

Reference

Thompson AJ, Tully EC, Henrich CC. Bidirectional associations between responsive parenting and children’s internalizing problems and moderation by negative emotionality. Journal of Family Psychology. Advance online publication. 2025. https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/fam0001291

Image credit: Adobe Stock

About the author

JoAnna Pendergrass

JoAnna Pendergrass, DVM, is a veterinarian and freelance medical writer in Atlanta, GA. She received her veterinary degree from the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine and completed a 2-year postdoctoral research fellowship at Emory University’s Yerkes Primate Research Center before beginning her career as a medical writer.

As a freelance medical writer, Dr. Pendergrass focuses on pet owner education and health journalism. She is a member of the American Medical Writers Association and has served as secretary and president of AMWA’s Southeast chapter.

In her spare time, Dr. Pendergrass enjoys baking, running, and playing the viola in a local community orchestra.

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