Abstract The purpose of this study is to analyze mother s meta-emotion philosophy and children s emotional adjustment in order to understand the actual interaction between mother s meta-emotion philosophy and children s emotional adjustment so as to find out any possible relation between these two. This study took qualitative approaches, chose four pairs of mother and children, used observation, interviewing method and children s emotion diaries to collect the data and conducted content. The findings included as follows. 1. In the aspect of mother s meta-emotion philosophy, it is found that 1Mother s feelings and thoughts of emotions and her concept and inclination will affect her patterns of dealing with her own emotions. And mother s strategies to handle emotions can be traced back to the parent-children interaction experience between her and her parents. 2The construct of mother s meta-emotion includes awareness and coach two dimensions. Mother who is aware of the emotions of herself and her child can not only describe her child s emotion experience in details, but her responses, and coach methods are also helpful for the children to possess healthy emotional adjustment; and vice versa. 2. In view of children s emotional adjustment, it is found that 1Children who can acutely perceive the emotions of themselves and others tend to be more sympathetic. In facing of symptoms of environment, they are more pre-active in comparison with those who can not, for whom are more egocentric. 2Children who have better ability to express emotions wear smiles frequently and are amicable and open-minded. On the contrary, those who lack of the ability to communicate their emotions are agitated, tend to be on the verge of breaking out, and order others harshly.
3Children with better emotion control ability can restrain impulse, put off satisfaction and focus on problem-solving. Unlikely, those who with limited ability to control emotions tend to be impulsive and impatient. They can not wait or accept criticism and vent their emotions arbitrarily. 4Children who can properly respond to others emotional demand and be able to communicate softly tend to possess harmonious interpersonal relationship. On the other hand, children who fail to take others feeling into consideration treat people strictly and stay alone constantly. 3. The results of the study are concluded 1Children either imitate mother s ways to build up their patterns of handling emotions or form their methods under the permission of their mothers. This indicates mother s emotion control and handling strategies will be assimilated and imitated by their children and imitated. Or, children s accidental exposure of feeling might be accepted by their mother and gradually become their habits of dealing with emotions. 2Mother s perception toward the influence of negative emotions will affect children s interpersonal emotions. Shall mother be aware of aforementioned mental mechanism, they will be more willing to take conscientious and careful attitudes on emotion related issues and spend much more time with their children on exploring the strategies of dealing with negative emotions and how to increase positive emotion experience in daily life. 3Mother s meta-emotion will have comprehensive impact on children s emotional adjustment. If mother can re-evaluate and construct positive meta-emotion philosophy, their children will have healthier emotional adjustment ability. Key wordsmeta-emotion philosophyemotional adjustment
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