Parent-Child Behavioral Coregulation and Children’s Self-Regulation Development: Genetic and Rearing Environmental Influences Using an Adoption Design

Adeline Hu

Behavioral coregulation is a dynamic, bi-directional process through which parents and children regulate each other's behavior through moment-to-moment goal-oriented actions. During early childhood, behavioral coregulation between parents and children supports the development of children’s self-regulatory skills (e.g., effortful control and executive function abilities). However, it is not clear how specific coregulatory processes, such as dyadic flexibility and positive and negative behavioral synchrony, shape these developmental outcomes. Moreover, the underlying mechanisms are not well understood. Specifically, it is essential to examine how genetic and environmental factors influence parent-child behavioral coregulation and children's subsequent self-regulatory skills. Research using biologically related families cannot address this question, as parents and children share both genes and rearing environments, making it almost impossible to disentangle genetics from rearing environmental influences. This study aims to address these knowledge gaps by using a parent-offspring adoption design to examine how genetic and environmental factors influence parent-child behavioral coregulation (i.e., dyadic flexibility and positive and negative behavioral synchrony) at 27 months and children’s subsequent self-regulatory skills (i.e., effortful control at 4.5 years and executive function at 6 years). We used data from the Early Growth and Development Study (N = 561 families including birth parents, adopted children, and adoptive parents). Adoptive parent-child interactions (both adoptive mother-child and adoptive father-child interactions) were examined during a 5-minute structured teaching task at 27 months, which was coded second-by-second using a micro-coding system that generated positive, neutral, and negative parent and child behaviors. We used the state space grid (SSG) approach to analyze dyadic flexibility (i.e., measured as mean duration per visit in a state), and positive and negative synchrony (i.e., measured as time spent in matched positive or negative behavioral states between parents and children). Parents reported on children’s effortful control at 4.5 years, and children’s executive function was assessed at age 6 years using the Stroop Day-Night task. Results indicated that greater dyadic flexibility in mother–child interactions predicted higher levels of children's effortful control at age 4.5 years (B = −0.18, p = .02) and marginally predicted executive function at 6 years (B = −0.06, p = .06). Higher positive synchrony within mother–child interactions predicted higher effortful control at 4.5 years (B = 0.01, p < .01). Greater dyadic flexibility in father–child interactions predicted higher levels of children's effortful control at age 4.5 years (B = −0.06, p < .01). Regarding etiology, birth mothers' agreeableness was positively associated with children's effortful control (B = 0.08, p = .04), suggesting that children's genetic predispositions to agreeableness contribute to self-regulation development. Adoptive mothers' overreactivity was negatively associated with children's effortful control (B = −0.14, p = .01), whereas adoptive mothers' warmth was positively associated with children's effortful control (B = 0.05, p < .01), indicating that maternal parenting behaviors in the adoptive rearing environment directly influence children's self-regulation. Adoptive fathers' warmth was negatively associated with father–child mean duration per visit, indicating greater dyadic flexibility (B = −0.03, p = .05), and positively predicted children's effortful control (B = 0.03, p = .03), indicating that paternal warmth may influence children's self-regulation both directly and through its association with parent–child interaction dynamics. Overall, findings highlight dyadic flexibility as a central mechanism linking early parent–child interaction dynamics to the development of children's self-regulation, while also providing evidence for both environmental and genetic contributions to these processes.

Parent-Child Behavioral Coregulation and Children’s Self-Regulation Development: Genetic and Rearing Environmental Influences Using an Adoption Design

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