According to emotion socialization theory, parent characteristics interact with child and contextual factors to influence parent responding to youth emotions, which impacts youth emotional reactivity and regulation. However, little is known about how treatments for youth emotional disorders, particularly those with significant parent intervention components, may impact parents’ own emotional reactivity and their responses to youth emotion. We investigated whether parents (N = 91) participating in a transdiagnostic treatment for youth emotional disorders experienced change in their own emotional reactivity (i.e., symptoms, distress tolerance [DT], emotion regulation), supportive responses to youth emotion (e.g., expressive encouragement), and unsupportive responses to youth emotion (e.g., punitive, minimizing). We also examined the relationship of these changes to treatment-related change in youth symptoms. Parent anxiety, depression, stress, DT, and cognitive reappraisal significantly improved from pre- to post-treatment. Unsupportive responses to youth emotions also decreased. Change in parent DT and baseline youth symptoms were the only significant predictors of parent-rated post-treatment youth anxiety and depressive symptoms when all variables were included in regression models. This is the first known investigation of changes in parent emotional reactivity and responses to youth emotions in response to a transdiagnostic treatment of emotional disorders for youth. Results support the beneficial impact of treatment involvement on parents’ own emotional reactivity and behaviors, as well as the potential importance of targeting parent DT to improve youth symptoms.

根据情绪社会化理论，父母的特征会与孩子和环境因素相互作用，影响父母对青年情绪的反应，从而影响青少年的情绪反应和调节能力。但是，对于青年情绪障碍的治疗方法，尤其是那些具有重大父母干预成分的治疗方法，如何影响父母自身的情绪反应以及他们对青年情绪的反应，知之甚少。我们调查是否父母（ñ = 91）参加针对青年情绪障碍的转诊治疗时，他们自身的情绪反应发生了变化（即症状，痛苦耐心[DT]，情绪调节），对青年情绪的支持性反应（例如，表达性鼓励）和对情绪缺乏支持青年情感（例如，惩罚性的，最小化的）。我们还检查了这些变化与青少年症状的治疗相关变化之间的关系。从治疗前到治疗后，父母的焦虑，抑郁，压力，DT和认知重新评估均得到明显改善。对青年情绪的不支持反应也有所减少。当所有变量都包括在回归模型中时，父母的DT和基线青年症状的变化是父母评定的治疗后青年焦虑和抑郁症状的唯一重要预测因子。这是对父母情绪反应的变化以及对青年情绪的转诊治疗做出的对青年情绪反应的第一个已知调查。结果支持治疗参与对父母自己的情绪反应和行为的有益影响，以及针对父母DT改善青年症状的潜在重要性。