Research demonstrates that Black parents attempt to suppress children’s expressions of negative emotions (e.g., anger, fear), in part, to protect them from experiencing racial bias from authority figures. The goal of this study was to examine whether the effectiveness of parental suppression strategies in reducing behavior problems depends on whether parents talk to children about the potential of experiencing racism (i.e., preparation for bias) and children’s resting cardiac vagal tone as indexed by baseline respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). Ninety-four parents (97% mothers) who identified their child as Black (56% girls) completed questionnaires about their punitive and minimizing responses to their child's negative emotions and their child's internalizing and externalizing problems at ages 5 and 6. Children's baseline RSA was assessed at age 5. Results indicated that parents' suppression of children's negative emotions predicted decreased externalizing behaviors (e.g., acting out) only when parents talked to their children about racism. When parents did not contextualize their restrictions on children’s emotional expressions with discussions about race, children with higher baseline RSA demonstrated increased externalizing behaviors, whereas those with lower baseline RSA were unaffected. Parental suppression strategies led to increased internalizing symptoms (e.g., anxiety, withdrawal) among children with higher baseline RSA regardless of whether parents discussed racism. Black parents face a conundrum in which suppressing their children’s negative emotions, in hopes of subverting racism, may reduce their children's externalizing problems under some circumstances, but may increase the risk of their children developing internalizing problems. Implications for systemic policy change to combat racism are discussed.

研究表明，黑人父母试图抑制孩子表达负面情绪（例如愤怒、恐惧），部分原因是为了保护他们免受权威人物的种族偏见。本研究的目的是检查父母抑制策略在减少行为问题方面的有效性是否取决于父母是否与孩子谈论经历种族主义的可能性（即，为偏见做准备）和儿童的静息心脏迷走神经张力（以基线呼吸为指标）窦性心律失常（RSA）。94 名父母（97% 的母亲）将自己的孩子认定为黑人（56% 的女孩），他们完成了关于他们在 5 岁和 6 岁时对孩子的负面情绪以及孩子的内化和外化问题的惩罚性和最小化反应的问卷调查。s 基线 RSA 在 5 岁时进行了评估。结果表明，只有当父母与孩子谈论种族主义时，父母对孩子负面情绪的抑制预示着外化行为（例如，表现出来）的减少。当父母没有将他们对孩子情绪表达的限制与关于种族的讨论联系起来时，基线 RSA 较高的孩子表现出外化行为增加，而基线 RSA 较低的孩子则不受影响。无论父母是否讨论过种族主义，父母压制策略都会导致基线 RSA 较高的儿童内化症状（例如焦虑、退缩）增加。黑人父母面临一个难题，即抑制孩子的负面情绪，希望颠覆种族主义，可能会降低孩子的 在某些情况下会出现外化问题，但可能会增加孩子出现内化问题的风险。讨论了系统性政策变革以打击种族主义的影响。