Helping Toddlers Learn to Manage Their Anger.
Emotion regulation (ER) is seen as very important in developing the abilities to manage their feelings and emotion-related physiological processes. Since infants are incapable of emotion regulation, its development requires caregiver behavior. Initially, the adult helps the infant self-soothe, then the infant must learn self-soothing strategies. The tripartite model of the impact of the family on children's ER and adjustment (Morris et al., 2017), posits that development of ER occurs through children's observation of their parents’ emotions (e.g., modeling and social referencing), emotion-related parenting practices (e.g., emotion coaching and reactions to emotions), and the emotional climate of the family (e.g., attachment/parenting style, marital relations). This is a longer than usual post because the study is complex and the findings about measuring temperament very important. The phrases in Bold have been bolded by me.
Schoppmann et al. (2021) in Child Development examine distraction as a strategy for helping toddlers learn to manage their anger. In their study, 22-month-old toddlers observed an adult—either a stranger or their parent—distracting him- or herself with toys while waiting for an object. This modeling situation took place between two waiting situations (WSs) designed to elicit frustration in the toddlers. An additional age-matched control group did not see a model between the WSs.
They measured activity level as one feature of temperament. Activity level is operationalized as gross motor activity, including speed, intensity, frequency, and length. Children who score high on activity level like to take initiative, are full of energy and seem to rarely fatigue. However, they can also be agitated and may have difficulties remaining seated. Schoppmann et al. assumed that toddlers would choose a distraction strategy that matched their temperamental disposition in the first WS. Not surprisingly, they found a significant positive correlation between the temperamental scale Activity Level and active distraction and a significant negative correlation between Activity Level and calm distraction.
“The use of distraction correlated negatively with the frequency, but not the intensity of negative affect. Toddlers who displayed more distraction after an observational learning situation also displayed less frequent and less intense negative affect. Moreover, the more active the toddlers were rated by their parents, the more active distraction and the less calm distraction they displayed in a frustrating situation. Toddlers learned to use more distraction in a frustrating situation after having observed a model do the same. Changes in distraction after observational learning did not, however, vary as a function of how well the modeled behavior matched toddlers’ temperament. That is, toddlers did not benefit from a social learning situation where the modeled behavior matched their temperamental disposition toward activity level, any more than they benefitted from a social learning situation where the modeled behavior did not match their temperamental disposition toward activity level.”
Toddlers also changed their use of distraction through observational learning in the present study, as revealed by contrasting their behavior to that of toddlers in the control group who had not observed a model. There was no different usage of distraction regarding either active or calm distraction alone, but only for combined distraction. This pattern of results shows that toddlers did not specifically and only copy a particular behavior (calm play, active play) but rather the general strategy (distraction), regardless of temperament. In the context of the present study, 2-year-olds’ ability to distract themselves in different ways after observing the model doing so in one particular way (active vs. calm) might suggest that they extracted the gist of the model's behavior and applied this knowledge broadly (e.g., using stimuli that the model had not used herself).
One issue that arose repeatedly in the context of the present study concerns the validity and reliability of temperament measurements. Neither parent rating nor behavioral coding appear to be sufficient to capture temperament adequately. In order to measure the temperament dimension “activity level” as comprehensively as possible in the present study, we included parental reports via temperament questionnaire, physiological measures (actiwatch), and behavioral coding for activity level. Unexpectedly, parental rating and actiwatch measures did not correlate significantly. One reason could have been that toddlers behaved out of character in the laboratory situation. A second reason may lie in the uncertainties around parent ratings.
In sum, the present study indicated that toddlers were able to learn to use the ER strategy distraction in a frustrating situation after having seen a model. Toddlers who had not seen a model used less distraction in the process. Increased use of distraction correlated with reduced negative affect. Without any prior instruction, toddlers chose a distraction strategy (calm vs. active) that matched their temperament, but they did not learn better when the model used the matching distraction strategy.