Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among
young children's temperament, emotional regulation, and their mother's parenting
stress. This study also analyzed the mediating effect of mother's parenting
stress on the relationship between the other two variables.
Methods: A total of 304 mothers with young children that lived in Gwangju
and Jeollanamdo participated in this study. The data were analyzed using
Pearson's correlation coefficient, hierarchical multiple regression analysis, and
the Sobel test.
Results: The main results are as follows. First, adaptability temperament was
positively correlated with children's emotional regulation and negatively correlated
with mother's parenting stress. There was no statistically significant relationship
between activity temperament and other variables, whereas regularity
temperament had only a significant relationship with emotional regulation.
Second, it was found that mother's parenting stress partially mediated between
children's adaptability temperament and emotional regulation.
Conclusion: The results of this study imply that mother's parenting stress is a
very important factor on young children's emotional regulation. Also, the present
study suggests that children’s adaptability temperament and mother’s parenting
stress should be considered together in order to improve young children’s emotional
regulation.