ABSTRACT

The development of self-regulation in children has been mainly studied from an individual perspective. The main objective of this article is to review existing data on the development of self-regulatory abilities of the child in the familial/parenting context, from a bidirectional perspective. We looked at self-regulation construct from a temperamental, respectively a cognitive stance, the ones most widely used in the studies reviewed. Our review mainly focused on studies that analyzed the progression of child self-regulatory abilities in conjunction with parental characteristics (like parental self-regulation, parental temperament and mental health status), parent-child relationship, parenting variables, as well as family structure or home environment. We choose to focus our review on these data, given that a critical factor in the development of self regulation in early childhood is the social impact of others, especially parents. As this literature review shows, the development of self-regulatory abilities is an interplay between child traits and parental/environmental influences. These influences seem to be bidirectional ones, which imply developmental plasticity.

KEYWORDS: self-regulation, temperament, parent-child interaction, parenting

PAGES: 55-85