• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.1-18
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• 2015

This study tested the relationship between mothers' beliefs about their children's emotions and the children's emotional regulation, using the mothers' positive and negative emotional expressiveness as mediators. The participants comprised 511 mothers with children whose ages ranged from 3 to 5 years, from 11 early childhood educational institutions located in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province. The survey data were analyzed using the SPSS 21.0, AMOS 21.0 and Mplus 6.12 programs. The main results were as follows. First, there were significant correlations among the three variables (i.e., mothers' beliefs about their children's emotions, the children's emotional regulation, and the mothers' emotional expressiveness). Second, both the mothers' beliefs about their children's emotions and the mothers' emotional expressiveness predicted in a significant manner the children's degree of emotional regulation. Third, the mediating effects of the mothers' emotional expressiveness were found to be significant. This indicated that the mothers' emotional expressiveness can be one means by which their children's emotional regulation can be increased, and this needs to be taken into account when designing educational and counseling programs.