Parental Emotion Socialization and Protective Factors Related to Child Psychosocial Outcomes in the Context of Military Families and PTSD

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The process of deployment and reintegration of military service members/veterans (SM/Vs) creates a stressful environment for SM/Vs and their families, which can put children at risk for adverse outcomes. Such risk is exacerbated when a SM/V has elevated PTSD symptoms. This type of high-risk environment is associated with development of future psychosocial problems in children. On the other hand, many children are resilient to such problems and demonstrate healthy adjustment. Little is known about what factors influence whether a child experiences negative or positive outcomes in such situations, but parenting likely plays a key role. There is evidence that the symptoms of PTSD can make parenting difficult for SM/Vs and their partners, but further research is needed about specific parenting processes that are affected by PTSD. Little is also known about how SM/Vs' and partners' parenting styles and behaviors interact to affect children. This study investigates how PTSD might be related to emotion socialization, or how parents teach, model, and respond to emotions in the family. Emotion socialization is a critical parenting process that contributes to children's psychosocial development. To examine these processes, this project capitalizes on a unique, previously-collected dataset with videos of parent-child interactions and questionnaire data collected from SM/Vs, partners, children, and teachers. Emotion socialization-related behaviors (ESRBs) of parents will be assessed through rigorous observational coding of the parent-child interactions. This approach will allow for investigations of associations among SM/V PTSD, the ESRBs of both partners, and children's adjustment, which will be important to understanding psychosocial risk and resilience in military children with a parent who has symptoms of PTSD. Secondly, this project will examine a series of individual and couple factors that may buffer (a) partners from engaging in non-supportive ESRBs and (b) children from maladaptive adjustment when SM/Vs demonstrate symptoms of PTSD. The proposed investigation addresses the NICHD priority to identify “factors and mechanisms that promote …psychosocial adjustment for children … exposed to high-risk family … environments.” These factors and mechanisms are essential to inform the development of evidence-based prevention and intervention programs for military and other high-risk families. The goals of the proposed study will be accomplished within a research training program aimed at helping the fellow develop expertise in interpersonal family relationships in a high-risk context, observational coding, and statistical analyses involving family and multi-informant data. The training plan includes completion of relevant courses, attendance in targeted workshops, individual supervision and mentorship by experts in the field, and scientific writing and presentation experience.