The relationship between emotion regulation and temper tantrums

Abstract

Childhood behaviour problems affect a substantial proportion of children, representing the majority of referrals to child clinical services.  Further, they are highly stable over time and serve as markers for the development of psychosocial difficulties throughout life.  In order to intervene effectively with behaviour problems, clinical psychologists must have solid models to work from.  The literature review paper therefore outlines research directions that have traditionally dominated the literature and their clinical utility and limitations are discussed.  The need to develop better models of child behaviour is established and the emerging literature regarding emotion regulation is reviewed in detail.  Conclusions are drawn regarding the contribution of this literature to models of child behaviour.

Although evidence from a number of studies consistently demonstrates an association between children’s emotion regulation and their overall levels of behaviour problems, few studies have explored its relationship with specific behaviour problems and no known studies have examined its role in temper tantrums.  The empirical paper therefore describes a study investigating the relationship between emotion regulation and temper tantrums in seventy-eight preschool age children.  Caregivers completed the Behaviour Checklist (BCL, Richman, 1977) and the Emotion Regulation Checklist (ERC, Shields & Cicchetti, 1997), and nurseries also completed the ERC.  A tantrums composite was created from caregiver ratings on the tantrums items of the BCL and ERC.  Generalised deficits in emotion regulation were not found across children with temper tantrums.  However, a subgroup of children with additional behaviour problems had lower levels of emotion regulation and higher levels of dysregulation than children with tantrums as an isolated complaint and children without tantrums.  Possible explanations for this pattern of results are discussed, including the distinction between instrumental and reactive tantrums and the role of emotion regulation as a resiliency factor against the development of multiple behaviour problems.  Future research directions are outlined and the clinical implications of the findings are examined.

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