The Relationship Between Parenting Styles, Interparental Conflict, and Children’s Emotion Regulation Difficulties: The Mediating Role of Attachment Security
Keywords:
Parenting styles, interparental conflict, emotion regulation, attachment security, children, qualitative researchAbstract
Objective: This study aimed to explore parents’ lived experiences of how parenting styles and interparental conflict are related to children’s emotion regulation difficulties, with particular attention to the processual mediating role of attachment security.
Methods and Materials: This qualitative study was conducted using thematic analysis. Participants were 24 parents residing in Tehran who had children aged 7–12 years showing emotion regulation difficulties. Purposeful sampling with maximum variation was used to include diversity in parental gender, educational background, socioeconomic status, and family conflict patterns. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and continued until theoretical saturation was achieved. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed through initial, focused, and thematic coding with the support of NVivo software. To enhance trustworthiness, member checking, peer debriefing, analytic memoing, and constant comparison were employed.
Findings: Data analysis led to the identification of five main categories: “controlling parenting and suppression of emotional expression,” “responsive parenting and formation of a secure base,” “interparental conflict and insecurity in the home environment,” “attachment security as a protective mechanism,” and “manifest and hidden patterns of children’s emotion regulation difficulties.” The findings indicated that authoritarian, punitive, and inconsistent parenting, particularly when accompanied by unresolved interparental conflict, intensified children’s emotional insecurity. Conversely, parental warmth, stable responsiveness, emotion-focused dialogue, and clear boundaries fostered attachment security and strengthened children’s capacity to identify, tolerate, and regulate negative emotions.
Conclusion: The results suggest that attachment security may function as a key explanatory process linking parenting styles and interparental conflict to children’s emotion regulation difficulties. Parent-focused interventions, parental emotion regulation training, reduction of overt conflict in the child’s presence, and enhancement of emotional responsiveness may improve children’s emotion regulation capacities
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