Difficulties in Emotion Regulation among Adolescents and the Role of Parenting Styles

Shreeya Athokpam and Celina Phurailatpam
Manipur University, Manipur

Pages:226-235

Emotion regulation is a critical developmental skill that enables individuals to manage
and respond adaptively to emotional experiences, especially during adolescence– a
period marked by heightened emotional reactivity and significant physiological, cognitive,
and social transitions. This study explores the emotion regulation difficulties among
adolescents and the role of parenting styles. Convenience sampling was used to recruit
187 adolescents aged 13–18 years from Manipur (97 males and 90 females). Data
were collected using a sociodemographic questionnaire, the Difficulties in Emotion
Regulation Scale-Short Form (DERS-SF; Kaufman et al., 2015), and the Perceived
Parenting Style Scale (Divya & Manikandan, 2013). An independent samples t-test
showed no significant gender differences in emotion regulation difficulties. Pearson’s
correlation analysis indicated that authoritarian (r=.360, p<.01) and permissive (r=.363,
p<.01) parenting styles were positively associated with greater emotional difficulties,
whereas authoritative parenting showed no significant relationship. Most participants
reported being raised under authoritative parenting (74.9%), with 84.24% experiencing
moderate and 12.83% experiencing high emotion regulation difficulties. These findings
underscore the importance of understanding the impact of different parenting styles on
adolescents’ emotional development and emphasize the need for targeted interventions
that promote supportive parenting to enhance healthy emotion regulation skills.