Grant: Doctoral Award - Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarships

The term "Terrible Twos" is used to describe the intense and often unpredictable tantrums that many toddlers experience during the second year of life. This period of difficulty may be explained by the fact that toddlers are still developing distress regulation skills, the skills that we use to manage our emotions in stressful situations, such as when we experience a painful procedure, become frustrated, or receive bad news. While difficulties with distress regulation can be challenging for parents and caregivers to manage in the short term, these difficulties are associated with many types of mental health problems for the developing child later in life. Because of this, it's important to understand what factors contribute to children's distress regulation skills early in life so that at-risk children can be identified and supported. Social influences, and in particular, a child's parents and caregivers, are known to be an important factor contributing to the child's distress regulation skills. When a parent experiences stress, their ability to support their child may be negatively impacted. My project aims to understand how parent characteristics and behaviours predict more optimal or less optimal patterns in the child's distress regulation skills. To do this, the study will follow caregiver-toddler dyads at 12, 18, and 24 months, and record the child's physiology (heart rate) and behaviour during low-, moderate-, and high-distress situations. Characteristics of the parent (e.g., soothing behaviours, mental health, sociodemographic background, culture) will also be measured, in order to identify which characteristics might put children at risk of or protect them from less adaptive outcomes. This is the first step toward developing strategies to support parents in need, so that parents can in turn support their child in learning distress regulation skills that will prepare them to deal with stress in a healthy way.