J Child Fam Stud (2013) 22:869878

DOI 10.1007/s10826-012-9646-5

ORIGINAL PAPER

Emotional Bonds with Parents, Emotion Regulation, and SchoolRelated Behavior Problems Among Elementary School Truants
HeeYoung Kim Timothy Page

Published online: 10 August 2012

 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012

Abstract Among juvenile status offenses, truancy represents the largest share of juvenile court caseloads. As a
marker of risk, truancy is important because of its associations with school disengagement, drop-out, and developmental trajectories that include various forms of
delinquency and anti-social behavior. Better understanding
of the developmental circumstances and needs of truant
children may point the way to more effective intervention
strategies. Much accumulated research has shown strong
associations between the emergence of juvenile delinquency and qualities of caregiving in parentchild relationships. Child-parent attachment in particular has been
identified as an important developmental foundation of
the child-parent relationship. We used a multi-informant
approach to examine associations between childrens selfreported perceptions of attachment security (using the
Security Scales), their emotion regulation (reported by
parents on the Emotion Regulation Checklist), and schoolrelated behavior problems (as reported by teachers with the
Child Behavior Checklist), among 74 elementary schoolaged truant children (mean age 9 years). Children and
families were recruited through a truancy intervention
program in a state in the deep South in the U.S. Data were
analyzed via hierarchical multiple regression. Parents
reports of their childrens emotion regulation predicted
behavior problems as reported by teachers. Childrens
own reports of their emotional bonds with parents were
H. Kim
Eulji University, Sungnam-si, Gyeonggi-do 461-713,
South Korea
T. Page (&)
Louisiana State University School of Social Work, 321 H.P.
Long Fieldhouse, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA
e-mail: tpage2@lsu.edu

somewhat less predictive of emotion regulation and

behavior problems. Implications for truancy intervention
programs for high-risk elementary school children include
more focused attention to the importance of childrens
developing capacities for emotion regulation and the childparent bond.
Keywords Truancy
Emotion regulation

Emotional bonds

Introduction
Truancy is commonly defined as excessive unexcused
absences (Schultz 1987). Clinically, truancy has been categorized as a kind of conduct disordered behavior along the
same lines as stealing, lying, destructiveness, and cheating
(American Psychiatric Association 1998). As an early
childhood risk, school truancy is identified as part of a
developmenal pathway to more serious, later criminal
careers (Loeber and Farrington 1998a, b, Loeber and Farrington 2000. Chronic non-attendant school children often
miss opportunities to follow their school curricula, show
low academic achievement, and lose interest in school.
Consequently, these children are at risk for engagement in
delinquent behaviors such as school drop-out, substance
abuse, gang involvement, and criminal activities (Cullingford 1999; Balfanz et al. 2008; Garry 1996; Hallfors
et al. 2002; Huizinga et al. 2000). School truancy, therefore, should be considered an important marker of a childs
social adjustment and, specifically, risk for behavior
problems.
Although accurate nationwide data are not available
because of the absence of statutory requirements for documentation of truancy in school systems, the following

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statistics document the seriousness of the issue. The most

recent Juvenile Court Statistics report that petitioned status
offense caseloads increased 31 % between 1995 and 2007
(Puzzanchera et al. 2010). Among total status offense
cases, the largest portion of caseloads dealt with truancy,
and truancy cases had the largest increase among petitioned
status offenses, 54 %, between 1995 and 2007. Many
police departments report that most daytime crimes such as
vandalism, shoplifting, and graffiti are committed by students who are out of school during regular school hours
(Garry 1996). A police program in North Miami Beach
provides support for the relationship between truancy and
daytime crimes. After implementation of police truancy
interventions, such as picking up truant children on the
street during school hours, the city crime rates decreased
by 22 % for vehicle burglaries and 19 % for residential
burglaries and criminal mischief (Berger and Wind 2000).
Research has established relationships between various
family and environmental factors and school adjustment,
including truancy. When parents participate in their childrens education, such as assisting with homework, monitoring grades, achievement scores and courses, and
attending Parent Teacher Association (PTA), the probability of truancy decreases (Epstein and Sheldon 2002).
Poor parental discipline and low quality of the parentchild
relationship have been identified as strong predictors of
delinquency, including truancy (Cullingford 1999; McNeal
and Ralph 1999; Rosenfeld et al. 2000). Environmental
stressors, particularly poverty, pose a significant risk to
parental capacities for emotional availability and responsiveness toward their children (Knitzer and Perry 2009),
and poverty has been shown to present a significant risk for
truancy (see, e.g., Zhang et al. 2010). The mechanism
behind this association may well be parental impairments
in emotional availability and responsiveness, brought about
through the daily stresses associated with poverty.
Research investigating associations between specific areas
of parentchild relationships and truancy, from a developmental perspective, however, remains scarce.
School-Related Behavior Problems and Parental
Factors: Child-Parent Attachment
Child-parent attachment in particular has been identified as a
major developmental component of the child-parent relationship (Shaw and Bell 1993). In the perspective of attachment theory, secure attachments are associated with greater
social competence and self-regulatory ability in school settings (Cole et al. 1996; Granot and Mayseless 2001; Moss et al.
1998). Children with secure attachments tend to develop
internalized cognitive representations characterized by generally positive expectations regarding helpfulness and support
in social relationships (Wilson 2001). Bowlby (1973, 1982)

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termed these representations internal working models.

These models allow individuals to anticipate the future and
make plans concerning future events or situations involving
relational transactions. Securely attached children tend to
establish models of the self as valued and competent and of
caregivers as available and responsive (Bretherton and Munholland 2008). These internal representations are carried
forward as the child matures, into new social circumstances
involving teachers and peers.
Numerous empirical findings indicate that a childs
secure attachment to parents has profound effects on various developmental domains, particularly peer relationships (Kerns et al. 1996) and socialization (Richters and
Waters 1991). Conversely, insecure attachment has been
identified as a risk factor for externalizing behavior problems (Coughlin and Vuchinich 1996; Dekovic et al. 2003;
Greenberg et al. 1993; Ingram and Ritter 2000; Leifer et al.
2002; Moss et al. 1998) and teen pregnancy (Rogers and
Lee 1992). Among the most important developmental
achievements facilitated by the attachment relationship is
the capacity for emotion regulation.
Attachment and Emotion Regulation
Emotion regulation is a capacity within the individual that
redirects, controls, modulates, and modifies emotional
arousal to enable him or her to function adaptively in
emotionally challenging situations (Cassidy 1994). A
childs first year of life is fundamental to developing the
ability to regulate emotions (Eisenberg and Fabes 1992).
According to Fox (1994) and Saarni (1990), emotional
regulatory capacities become more integrated and complex
during the preschool and elementary school years. Schoolaged children are increasingly able to be aware of their
internal experience and emotional expression.
Eisenberg and colleagues have conducted extensive
studies of emotion regulation and childrens school behavior
(Eisenberg et al. 1997, 1995, 1996). Childrens behavior in
school is predicted by individual differences in managing
their emotion (Eisenberg et al. 1997). Children who have low
regulation of their emotion and are high in emotional
intensityparticularly negative emotionare likely to
engage in externalizing behaviors such as aggression and
antisocial behaviors (Eisenberg et al. 1995, 1997).
Contreras and Kerns (2000) proposed that parental
availability and responsiveness to the childs distress signals are related to the development of adaptive emotion
regulation skills in children. As one of the functions of the
attachment system, securely attached children are able to
use the parent effectively to help them regulate their
positive and negative emotions (Cassidy 1994; Contreras
and Kerns 2000). In such circumstances children are provided assurance that sharing/expressing both positive and

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871

Method

Centers (TASC) program, located in a state in the deep

South in the U.S. The TASC program is designed to provide early identification, assessment, and intervention to
prevent continued unauthorized school absences of children in grades K through five, in the public school system.
The majority of children referred to TASC are from lower
socioeconomic households and racial or ethnic minority
groups, which reflects the demographic composition of the
student population: Eighty-three percent of all students in
the public school system from which this studys sample
was drawn are African-American and 81 % qualify for free
or reduced meals. Teachers and principals refer children for
truancy at the fifth unexcused absence.
In the TASC Program, children who are likely to continue
having truancy problems (as identified with the Risk Indicators Survey, discussed below) are placed in a high-risk
group, and children who are unlikely to continue having
truancy problems are placed in a low- risk group. For the lowrisk group of children, TASC staff send an official letter
which explains the state school attendance law and sanctions,
and continue to monitor the childrens attendance to ensure
that truancy does not continue. For the high-risk group of
children, TASC staff hold parent conferences called the
Informal Family Service Plan Agreement (IFSPA), and
provide case management and monitoring for compliance. In
addition to the IFSPA meeting, a truancy court is held every
other week for children and their families who show resistance to the intervention process. A total of 969 students were
referred to the local TASC program during the 2006 and
2007 academic school year. Just under half of these children
(n = 457) were identified as high-risk. The study sample
was selected from the high-risk group of children involved
with the local TASC program, to better understand the
experience of children with well-established patterns of
truancy. Due to resource limitations, 93 children and their
parents (20 % of the high risk group) were contacted for this
study, in the order in which the referral was received,
beginning with the start of the academic year. Of the 93
students, 74 parentsone parent reporter per childagreed
to participate and completed measurements. (Parents
included 70 mothers, 1 father, 2 grandmothers, and 1 legal
guardian.) All but one of these 74 children was African
American (98.6 %). There were 46 (62.2 %) males and 28
(37.8 %) females with a mean age of 9.11 years (SD = 1.67,
range 7 to 13 years). The modal age was eight (n = 24) and
the age group with fewest children was thirteen (n = 1).
More than half of the children (n = 43, 58.1 %) were in
grades three to five.

Participants

The Risk Indicators Survey (RIS I)

Participating children for this purposive sample were

recruited through the Truancy Assessment and Service

Not all children referred for school absence have the same
level of need in services. In order to identify truant children

negative emotions, in moderation, is acceptable. The child

increasingly applies this expectation to relationships with
others, which further promotes abilities to tolerate and
regulate emotion in socially acceptable ways (GuttmannSteinmetz and Crowell 2006). On the other hand, when a
caregiver is inconsistently responsive to a childs distress,
and/or has lower tolerance of or effectiveness in managing
the childs affect, the child is unlikely to learn how to
manage negative emotion and may develop a strategy of
heightening emotion to maintain the attention of the caregiver. When children generalize the negative emotionality
of their parental relationships to relationships with others,
they frequently encounter similar relational problems
(Guttmann-Steinmetz and Crowell 2006).
Children who have secure attachments with their caregivers appear to have better behavioral management skills in
the school setting (Granot and Mayseless 2001) and are more
motivated to achieve in school (Moss and St-Laurent 2001).
Attachment security to caregivers may thus be an important
protective factor against the risks of behavioral problems
related to school truancy. As far as we know, ours is the first
study to examine relationships among childrens perceptions
of attachment security, emotion regulation, and behavior
problems observed at school in a sample of elementary
school-aged truant children. In so doing, this work expands
the study of important dimensions of child development to a
population of previously understudied children. While many
complex factors in a childs social ecology are likely to be
ultimately responsible for the emergence of the problem of
school truancy, our focus on these selected components of
the experience of children and families reflects their relevance to the expansion of developmental knowledge and,
ultimately, intervention.
Four hypotheses were proposed: (1) Elementary schoolaged truant children who report high quality child-parent
emotional bonds (an indicator of attachment security) will
be likely to have high levels of emotion regulation; (2)
Elementary school-aged truant children who report high
quality child-parent emotional bonds will be less likely to
have behavior problems at school; (3) Elementary schoolaged truant children with high levels of emotion regulation
will be less likely to have behavior problems at school; (4)
Elementary school-aged truant children with both high
child-parent emotional bonds and high emotion regulation
will be the least likely to have behavior problems at school.

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who face high developmentally related risks (e.g., social

and/or behavioral problems, academic failure), TASC
program staff complete assessments of referred children
using demographic and academic information and a
checklist of risk indicators completed by teachers, the
Risk Indicators Survey I (RIS I). The 55-item RIS I was
developed by the TASC Program as an ecologicallybased, clinically-informed risk assessment. Teachers
and staff pooled impressions of relevant risk indicators
for children in 12 dimensions representing emotional,
social, and academic problems and parental characteristics
(emotional responsiveness, manipulation, defiance,
aggression, hyperactivity, risk taking behaviors, attentionseeking, developmental issues, social isolation, poor
motivation, unstable home life, and parental attitudes).
Each item is answered by a yesno response (rated as 1 or
0), and each dimension is measured by the sum of
selected items. For example, two items, argues with
authority figures and uses obscene language or gestures measure the first dimension, Defiant (possible
range of scores is 0-2). In addition to the scores for the 12
dimensions, the survey also measures truancy risk as a
unidimensional construct composed of the scores for all
12 dimensions. Total scores can range from 0 to 55, with
higher scores indicating higher levels of continuing truancy risk. In the current study, the RIS I total score had
an internal consistency of .84 (Cronbachs alpha). Convergent validity for the RIS I has been supported by the
current study, where significant correlations with parents
reports of emotion regulation and teacher ratings on the
CBCL were found (see Table 2).
Procedures
Data collection involving children and parents was
administered in two settings, IFSPA meetings and truancy
court. The first author received referrals of parents and
children directly from the local TASC staff, and attended
IFSPA meetings and truancy court hearings, where she
introduced herself to parents and children. At that time, she
read the informed consent letter, explaining that the purpose of the study was to better understand how schools
and families can improve students school engagement.
She invited them to participate, answering any questions
they had. Participants completed questionnaires at that
time. Teacher surveys were placed in teachers mailboxes
at school, and the first author collected the completed
forms the week after the survey distribution. As a token of
appreciation and incentive, teachers who completed the
survey were sent a gift of ten dollars, reflecting the fact that
seven teachers had to complete surveys for two children,
and that the collection of these data depended on their
willingness to return the questionnaires 1 week later.

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Measures
Child-Parent Emotional Bonds
The Security Scales (SS) (Kerns, et al. 1996) The Security
Scales is a childs self-report measure of parentchild
relationships that is based on attachment theory. The purpose of this scale is to assess childrens perceptions of a
particular attachment relationshipattachments to mother
and father are assessed separatelyfor children eight to
14 years of age. It contains 15 items that measure a childs
belief that a parent is responsive and available, open to
communication and a reliable source of help and comfort
when needed. Students respond using 4-point scales (from
least true to most true). Items are structured using a some
kidsother kids format. For example, for the statement
Some kids find it easy to trust their mom (dad) BUT other
kids are not sure if they can trust their mom (dad), children first indicate which leg of the statement is more true of
them, then they choose whether the phrase is really true
or sort of true. The two legs of the statements with two
levels each are combined to form one continuous 4-point
scale that reflects gradations of positive to negative characteristics about the relationship. Ratings are summed
across the 15 items to form a perceived attachment security
score ranging from 15 to 60, with higher scores indicating a
more secure relationship. Several studies have now evaluated the reliability and validity of the Security Scale. The
security scale has demonstrated adequate internal consistency of .74 or higher (Kerns et al. 1996; Kerns et al. 2000;
Lieberman et al. 1999; Verschueren and Marcoen 2002). In
the current study, the internal consistency coefficient of the
SS was .64. Previous studies have not involved groups of
high-risk children such as our participants, which may
account for this difference. Convergent validity of the SS
has been supported by the current study, which found
correlations with the Inventory of Parent and Peer
Attachment-Revised subscales (Gullone and Robinson
2005): Trust (r = .50); Communication (r = .44); and
Alienation (r = -.37).
Childs Emotion Regulation
Emotion Regulation Checklist (ERC) (Shields and Cicchetti 1997) The ERC is a scale that examines childrens
self-regulation as perceived by either their parents or
teachers; we used parent reports. It contains 24 items that
assess perceptions of childrens typical methods of managing emotional experiences, both positive and negative
aspects of emotion regulation, and requires approximately
10 min for completion. The ERC is composed of two
subscales: Lability/Negativity and Emotion Regulation.
Lability/Negativity includes 15 items that assess lack of

J Child Fam Stud (2013) 22:869878

flexibility, mood lability, and dysregulated negative affect

(e.g., is prone to angry outbursts). Emotion Regulation
consists of 8 items measuring emotional expression,
empathy, and emotional self-awareness (e.g., can say
when s/he is feeling sad, angry or mad, fearful or afraid).
Respondents rate items using a 4-point Likert-type scale
ranging from 1 (almost always) to 4 (never).
In the Shields and Cicchetti study (1997), the results of
factor analysis on the ERC data from 223 maltreated and
impoverished children (612 years old) were reported.
Internal consistency coefficients were .96 for Lability/
Negativity and .83 for Emotion Regulation. In addition, a
composite score (ERC) also was generated, as a single
emotion regulation criterion measure, with a reliability
coefficient of .89. In the current study, the internal consistency coefficients (Cronbachs alpha) obtained for these
scales were as follows: For the 15-item Lability/Negativity,
.81, for the 8-item Emotion Regulation scale, .58, and for
the composite ERC, .61. For this study, only the Lability/
Negativity sub-scale and the composite ERC were used.
The Lability/Negativity scale was used as an index of
emotion dysregulation and the ERC, which combines items
for regulation and dysregulation, was used as an index of
positive regulation (negative items are reverse-scored).
Behavior Problems at School
Child Behavior Checklist-Teachers Report Form (CBCLTRF) (Achenbach 1991) The CBCL-TRF is one of the
most widely used and well-validated measures of behavioral and emotional difficulties as well as competencies
in children of ages 618 years. The CBCL-TRF includes
118 items, and broadly assesses two categories of behaviors, internalizing and externalizing behaviors, as well as
eight problem subscales (withdrawn, somatic complaints,
anxious/depressed, social problems, thought problems,
attention problems, delinquent behavior, and aggressive
behavior), and three competence scales (activities, social,
and school). Teachers respond using a 3-point scale of 0
(not true), 1 (somewhat or sometimes true), and 2 (very
true).
Three externalizing subscales of the CBCL-TRF (social
problems, rule-breaking behavior, and aggressive behavior)
were initially examined as measures of school-related
behavior problems in the current study. The possible ranges
for these scales are 022, 024, and 040, respectively,
with higher scores reflecting more problem behaviors. The
clinical borderline for these scales is given with a range of
T scores, 6569, for both females and males. The mean T
scores for rule-breaking behavior and aggressive behavior
were within the clinical range (T = 68 and 65 for male
children, T = 68 and 67 for female children, respectively),
while the mean T scores for social problems were slightly

873

lower than the clinical cut-off (T = 62 for male children

and T = 61 for female children). Obtained internal consistencies (Cronbachs alpha) for social problems, rulebreaking behaviors, and aggressive behavior were .76, .82,
and .96, respectively.
Data Analysis
Following the presentation of descriptive data for study
variables, zero-order bi-variate correlations are presented to
illustrate inter-relationships among them. Hierarchical
multiple regressions were tested in order to determine whether childrens perceived attachment security (SS) and
emotion regulation scores (ERC) significantly predicted
childrens behavior problem scores on the CBCL-TRF.
Interaction effects (SS 9 Lability/Negativity and SS 9
ERC) were tested separately for moderating effects of
emotion regulation on the prediction of behavior problems
from the SS. Child gender and age were included as control
variables, based on findings from the child behavior literature (Eisenberg et al. 1999, 2000).

Results
Descriptive statistics for the major variables are presented
in Table 1. The values for skewness and kurtosis indicated
that the distributions of variables are normal.
Relationships Among Observed Variables
Observed variables in this study were initially examined
with zero-order correlations (see Table 2). The security
scale was associated, negatively, with aggressive behavior
only (r = -.27, p \ .05). The measures of emotion dysregulation, behavior problems, and the RIS were significantly intercorrelated.
Multivariate Analyses of Behavior Problems
Data were entered in 3 blocks to predict behavior problems
at school: Gender and age were included in block 1 as
demographic controls; Block 2 included the SS and either
Lability/Negativity or the ERC. Interaction terms for security scale 9 lability/negativity or security scale 9 ERC
were entered in a third block.
Two of the three CBCL scales (rule-breaking and
aggressive behavior) were predicted by Lability/Negativity
(findings not presented).
ERC was significantly associated with aggressive
behavior only. The only significant interaction term was of
SS x ERC in relation to aggressive behavior. This model is
therefore presented in Table 3. Both the security scale and

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Table 1 Descriptive statistics for attachment, emotion regulation,

and school-related behavior problem variables (N = 74)
Variable

Security scale
(child
report)

44.16

SD

6.50

Range

2854

Skewness

-.69

Kurtosis

-.02

n of
items
15

Variable

.64

1. Security scale

1.00

2. ERC lability/
negativity

-.14

3. ERC composite

ERC lability/
negativity

32.43

8.02

1848

.12

-.75

15

.81

ERC
composite
(parent
report)

67.62

10.60

4191

-.003

-.36

24

.80

CBCL (teacher report)

Aggressive
behavior

12.32

11.62

037

.62

-.92

20

.96

Social
problems

3.47

3.41

014

.96

.33

11

.76

Rule
breaking
behavior

6.03

4.48

018

.76

.01

10

.82

ERC in blocks 2 & 3 were significant predictors of childrens aggressive behavior problems. The overall model in
block 3 was statistically significant at the .01 level,
explaining 19 % of the variance in aggressive behavior.
Effect sizes for the main effects were in the medium range
(Cohens f2). Figure 1 illustrates the significant interaction
effect of the security scale and ERC (created using median
splits; b = 2.39, p \ .05). Children with low emotion
regulation, as measured with the ERC, had widely divergent scores for aggressive behavior problems, depending
on their self-reported emotional security with parents (SS).
Those with low security scale scores (below the median
score of 45) had the highest scores for aggressive behavior.
The lowest scores for aggressive behavior were found for
children with both high ERC and SS scores.

Discussion
The findings of initial bi-variate correlational analyses are
mostly consistent with previous studies as follows: Children who reported higher levels of security were less likely
to be aggressive. Children who had poorer emotion regulation were more likely to have behavior problems
(aggression, social problems, rule-breaking behavior) and
have higher truancy-related risks. Truancy risk was significantly associated with all three dimensions of behavior
problems.
The findings from the multivariate analyses indicate
that childrens emotional regulatory capacity is a significant predictor of aggressive behavior at school. Childrens
emotional bonds with their parents also predicted
aggressive behavior problems. The significant interaction

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Table 2 Intercorrelations among observed variables

4. Aggressive
behavior

.16

1.00
-.66**

1.00

-.27*

.32**

-.28*

1.00

5. Social problems

-.12

.24*

-27*

.80**

6. Rule breaking
behavior

-.12

.40**

-25*

.81**

1.00
.65**

7. RIS I

-.19

.33**

-.37**

.44**

.30**

1.00
.44**

* p \ .05, ** p \ .01

of SS and ERC in predicting aggressive behavior indicates that the children at highest risk for aggressive
behavior problems are those with both low emotional
security and poor emotion regulation, and children at
lowest risk are those with both high security and high
emotion regulation.
We expected that emotion regulation and school-related
behavior problems would be negatively associated. The
findings supported this prediction; multivariate analysis
found that childrens emotional dysregulation was a significant predictor of behavior problems. These findings are
also consistent with previous studies that have indicated
negative relationships between emotion regulation and
aggressive behaviors (Batum and Yagmurlu 2007; Eisenberg et al. 2000, 2001; Graziano et al. 2007).
Contrary to expectations, and unlike previous studies
(Contreras et al. 2000; Kerns et al. 2007, 2000), childparent emotional bonds (attachment security) were not
significantly associated with childrens emotion regulation
in the current study, as indicated in zero-order correlations.
The significant association of the interaction of the Security
Scales and the Emotion Regulation composite with childrens aggression, however, indicates moderating influences involving emotional security and emotion regulation.
Children with low scores on both of these measures were at
much greater risk for problems with aggression.
While previous studies examining childrens attachment
security have shown that secure children tend to have better
adjustments at school (Granot and Mayseless 2001), results
from the present study are somewhat mixed, with a significant association of the Security Scales with one measure, aggressive behavior, and no association of security
scales and our measure of truancy-related risk.
There are several possible reasons for discrepancies
between our findings and those of previous studies. To our
knowledge, this is the first study that examines the influence of childrens perception of attachment security and
emotion regulation together on childrens school-related

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Table 3 Hierarchical regression analysis predicting aggressive behavior with CBCL-TRF (N = 74; df for final model 1, 68)
Variable

Model 1

Model 2
SE (B)

-2.63

2.83

.20

.83

f2

Model 3

SE (B)

SE (B)

-.11

-1.01

2.75

-.04

-1.35

2.69

.03

-.31

.81

-.04

-.22

.79

-.03

SS

-.41

.21

-.23*

-3.07

1.28

-1.71*

ERC

-.27

.13

-.24*

-2.06

.87

-1.88*

.14

.04

.02

-2.39*

.09

B
Gender
Age

SS x ERC

b
-.06

R2(adj.)

.01

.13

.19

F for change in R2

.44

2.66*

3.12**

.15

* p \ .05; ** p \ .01

Fig. 1 Interaction effect of security scale 9 ERC predicting

aggressive behavior

behavior problems with a middle childhood-aged sample.

A second consideration is the participation of a previously
unstudied sample, African-American high-risk children,
with these instruments. Most attachment studies have been
done with European-American children in normative circumstances. The use of school truancy-related risk as our
primary selection criterion may also have truncated the
degree of variation we could expect to find among our
major measures.
A final plausible explanation for these discrepant findings may be the fact that we utilized self-report assessments for the measure of childrens emotional bonds.
Previous attachment security studies have been done predominantly with observational measures for young children
(i.e., the Strange Situation) and coded interviews for adults
(i.e., the Adult Attachment Interview). Self-report measures for middle childhood children have only recently
been developed. Even though this studys findings are
somewhat equivocal, the results do provide evidence that
future study with these instruments is warranted.

Some past research demonstrates that gender in middle

childhood is significantly related to negative emotionality
(Contreras et al. 2000) and externalizing problem behaviors, in that girls tend to be higher in reports of emotion
regulation and lower in reports of externalizing problem
behavior (Eisenberg et al. 1999, 2000). With respect to
gender differences, it was expected that female children
would display better emotion regulation and fewer schoolrelated behavior problems than male children. Instead, no
associations were found between childrens gender and
either emotion regulation or behavior problems. It may be
that the major difference between ours and other studies is
the sample characteristics, ours being of lower SES, primarily African-American children, and identified in middle-childhood as truant from school. Batum and Yagmurlu
(2007), however, also reported similar results of non-significant gender differences on emotion regulation (Kerns
et al. 2007) and externalizing behaviors. In contrast to the
current study sample, the Batum and Yagmurlu (2007)
study consisted of a normative sample of second grade
public and private school children of higher socioeconomic
status. This similar finding from different populations
suggests a complexity of processes underlying the development of emotion regulation and aggression deserving of
more study.
This study has several strengths, beginning with the
sample characteristics of age, ethnicity, and functional
characteristics. The sample consisted of predominantly
African American children at high-risk, as indicated by
repeated school truancy (i.e., [5 unexcused absences).
Childrens perceptions of emotional bonds to their parents
were one of the predictor constructs. The current study
findings from African American children at high-risk, as
indicated by repeated truancy, contributes to the existing
body of research on attachment with respect to ethnic
differences, and promises to inform other developmentally
focused research with high risk children. In particular, the
study of attachment security and emotion regulation in
middle childhood (aged 7 to 12 years old) has been limited.

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The current study also contributes to this literature,

substantively and methodologically. This is also the first
study of emotion regulation in elementary school-aged
truant children in relation to specific attachment-related
constructs.
This study also has its limitations. First of all, the use of
a cross-sectional design cannot address causality. Additionally, findings of this study may not support generalizations to populations beyond similar demographic
characteristics of the current study sample. We also faced
several challenges with respect to measurement. As noted
previously, the measurement of attachment in middlechildhood is difficult because neither observational nor
survey measures have as yet been developed with a high
degree of precision. In addition, our measurement procedures involved data collection with children and their
parents at the site of their court hearings for truancy. These
conditions may well have influenced the quality of data we
collected. In spite of these limitations, however, this study
did manage to explore aspects of affect, relationships, and
behavior that have not previously been studied in samples
of truant children.

Implications for Practice

The study findings imply that positive parenting practices
that promote childrens emotional security should receive
attention in interventions targeted at helping truant elementary school children learn more appropriate social
behavior at school. Theory suggests, and our findings
provide some limited corroboration of this, that an
important mechanism in this process is childrens capacities for regulation of problematic emotion.
From a developmental perspective, childrens capacities
for emotion regulation are a core element of their developing social competence and adaptation to situational
demands and expectations (Thompson and Meyer 2007).
Deficiencies in emotion regulation skills, both under-regulation (i.e., acting-out) and over-regulation (i.e., inhibited), of emotional expression appear to be an important
contributing factors to childrens school adjustment and
problem behaviors (Thompson and Meyer 2007). Middle
childhood is an especially challenging period in academic
and personal relationships: Peer relationships become an
increasingly important part of life and academic demands
are greater than in early childhood. Consequently, lack of
capability in managing emotion may lead to unsuccessful
negotiation of peer relationships and/or academic
achievement (Thompson and Meyer 2007).
The problems of anti-social behavior and poor emotion
regulation must be seen in their larger developmental
context, particularly the linkages of these problems to

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J Child Fam Stud (2013) 22:869878

emotional security with attachment figures. Because antisocial behavior and poor emotion regulation have deep
roots in the childs experience with emotional security in
the family, school policies that focus exclusively on punishment of childrens bad behavior are likely to be inadequate. These children and their families need to be
provided with opportunities to obtain services that can help
them to learn to achieve emotion regulation skills.
According to Grosss emotion regulation strategies model
(2007), for example, an intervention that focuses on cognitive change related to emotion, including better understanding of the link between specific social contexts and
ones personal goals, is one of the ways to teach children to
manage their emotion. In the United States, evidencebased, school-based prevention programs focusing on early
school childrens emotional competence skills exist, such
as the PATHS curriculum (Greenberg et al. 1995), the
Second Step program (Cooke et al. 2007), and Making
Choices (Fraser et al. 2000), each of which has been
developed and evaluated with respect to effectiveness to
prevent disruptive behavior problems. Designing and providing an intervention program to promote childrens
emotion regulation may be necessary to reduce truancy risk
and other school related problem behaviors.
Parents can influence their childrens emotional regulatory capacities both directly and indirectly through
positive modeling of emotional expression and behavior,
and even-handed discussion of emotion-related topics
(Zeman et al. 2006). Positive parental socialization effects
are only possible, however, when parents possess their own
abilities to regulate emotion (Thompson and Meyer 2007;
Zeman et al. 2006). An intervention program targeting
childrens emotion regulation should, therefore, also target
the development of parents awareness of characteristics of
their own emotional expression and acknowledge the effect
of parents emotional responsiveness on their childs
emotional and behavioral well-being (Zeman et al. 2006).
In order to further expand understanding of the emotional
and behavioral characteristics of elementary school-aged
truant children, future research should include comparisons
with non-truant children, especially as these might illuminate path differences toward school disengagement. We also
believe that it is important to include multiple measures of
attachment security to provide a broader assessment of the
construct and to avoid an over-reliance on a single method.
There are also other variables that may contribute to childrens school-related behavior problems that this study was
not able to include in the analyses. For example, Graziano
et al. (2007) found that the quality of the studentteacher
relationship mediated the association between childrens
emotion regulation and academic success. Finally, larger
samples would provide more statistical power, which could
provide opportunities for more detailed analyses. Continued

J Child Fam Stud (2013) 22:869878

research focus on this particularly vulnerable population of

children holds promise for addressing some of our most
urgent social problems related to school engagement and
academic success.

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