Parent emotion coaching and what it means for child wellbeing and school engagement

This study examines the impact of relational and emotion-focused parenting practices and philosophies on child wellbeing outcomes. Firstly, the systematic literature review investigated the parent emotion coaching and reflective functioning, the related
interventions and child outcomes relating to the two. The review focused on children in middle childhood. Findings showed emotion coaching and reflective functioning have positive impact on reducing behaviours associated with ADHD, ODD and conduct disorder. Parent mentalising predicted better child emotion understanding. There was no impact seen on outcomes such as physiological regulation and social competence. The review revealed a dearth of papers focusing on these parenting practices of children in middle childhood and tendency to focus on ‘negative’ child outcomes such as externalising behaviours. Secondly, the empirical study examined the relationship between parent emotion coaching and child school engagement using the Children’s School Lives study data. Multiple regression showed that parent emotion coaching predicted emotional engagement a year later when controlling for child gender, parent financial stress, parent level of education and emotional engagement at baseline. A moderation analysis showed no evidence that the teacher-child relationship moderated this interaction. The implications for school engagement interventions and a relational approach to promoting school engagement are discussed.