Many emotional and behavioral symptoms observed during childhood are often approached as problems inherent to the child. However, in clinical practice, a significant proportion of the symptoms presented by children cannot be understood independently of the relational context in which the child is embedded. In this regard, the parent’s emotional regulation capacity emerges as one of the fundamental factors shaping the child’s psychological development and risk for psychopathology.
Emotional regulation refers to an individual’s ability to recognize, tolerate, and manage their level of internal arousal in a manner appropriate to the situation. Children are not born with this capacity; rather, regulation develops through a developmental process and is largely shaped within early relationships with caregivers. In the first years of life, the child’s nervous system does not yet possess the capacity for self-soothing. Therefore, the child requires an external regulator—namely, the parent—to achieve emotional regulation. This process is referred to in the literature as co-regulation.
When a parent has sufficient regulation capacity, the child is soothed, understood, and supported during moments of intense emotion, and the accompanying physiological arousal gradually decreases. These repeated experiences help establish a sense of internal safety within the child’s nervous system. Over time, the child learns that emotions are tolerable and can be regulated within the context of a relationship. This learning forms the foundation of later self-regulation skills.
In contrast, when a parent struggles to regulate their own emotions, the co-regulation process is disrupted. The parent may not only be unable to soothe the child’s intense emotions but may also become overly aroused by them. This can lead to parental responses such as avoidance, excessive control, harsh discipline, over-soothing, or emotional invalidation.
Clinically, such parental patterns are associated with anxiety disorders, behavioral problems, somatic symptoms, and difficulties in emotional regulation in children.
An important point is that a child’s symptoms do not always indicate a disorder intrinsic to the child. One common situation encountered in clinical assessment is that the child displays developmentally expected reactions, yet these behaviors are pathologized because the parent has limited tolerance for them. For example, intense tantrums or separation distress in the preschool period may be developmentally normative; however, when parental regulation capacity is limited, these behaviors are more likely to be perceived as “problematic.”
At this point, the clinician’s guiding question should be: Is the child’s symptom truly indicative of an individual child psychopathology, or is it an expression of an emotional load that cannot be regulated within the parent–child relationship? This distinction directly influences both the diagnostic process and the intervention plan. Interventions that focus solely on the child may have limited effectiveness if parental regulation difficulties are not simultaneously addressed.
When parental regulation capacity is insufficient, the child often assumes a “carrier” role. Emotions that cannot be expressed, contained, or regulated within the family system become visible through the child’s behavior. From this perspective, the child’s symptom can be understood as a signal of the system’s unmet regulation needs. In clinical practice, this viewpoint allows the child to be understood not as the “problem,” but within a relational context.
For this reason, working with the parent is critical in the intervention process. Supporting the parent in recognizing their own regulation patterns, identifying triggers, and increasing their capacity to remain emotionally present with the child can lead to direct improvements in the child’s symptoms. This work should be approached not from a blaming stance, but within a developmental, relational, and supportive framework.
In conclusion, overlooking parental regulation capacity when evaluating child psychopathology means missing a crucial component of the clinical picture. A child’s emotional world is largely shaped by the parent’s regulatory presence. Therefore, an effective and ethical clinical approach requires that child symptoms be understood not only at an individual level, but also within a relational context. This perspective enhances diagnostic clarity and opens the door to more comprehensive and sustainable interventions.
In clinical practice, assessing parental regulation capacity is not limited to examining parental stress levels or anger control. The parent’s own childhood experiences, attachment history, and relationship with emotions play a decisive role in understanding the child’s current symptoms. For this reason, comprehensive assessment processes should give as much attention to interviews with parents as to the symptoms presented by the child. Supporting parental regulation capacity not only reduces the child’s symptoms, but also fosters a more secure, sustainable, and reparative interactional foundation within the parent–child relationship.