Emotion regulation (ER) is defined as the processes through which emotional awareness and experience are monitored, evaluated, maintained, and modified (Thompson, 1994). Difficulties with these processes have been proposed to increase risk for psychopathology. Disruptive behavior disorders (DBD) and somatic symptoms disorders (SSD) are characterized by an inability to express and modulate emotional states. Research aims to understand how ER influences mental health.

We focus on two strategy of ER: Cognitive Reappraisal, involves changing the way one thinks about a situation in order to change its emotional impact; Expressive Suppression involves suppressing or hiding external expressions of emotion from others (John and Gross, 2004)

We assess ER in order to examine the relation with SSD and DBD in childhood and with their parents.

The sample consists of 188 subjects divided in four groups: n = 41 children with DBD (M = 10.78 years, SD = 2.11); n = 50 parents (36 mothers and 14 fathers) of children with DBD; n = 44 children with SSD (M = 11.98 years, SD = 2.04); n = 53 parents (40 mothers and 11 fathers) of children with SSD. Were administered the ERQ (Balzarotti et al., 2010) for parents and ERQ-CA (Gullone and Taffe, 2012) for children.

DBD children reported higher levels of Suppression than SSD subjects; high levels of Suppression were reported in mother SSD and in father DBD.

This study extended previous research in childhood, including both mothers and fathers. The findings contribute to a greater understanding of the development of ER, which has important implications for psychological wellbeing.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.