The purpose of this study was to advance our understanding of the role of emotion regulation in the growth of conduct problems over time by examining whether increases in positive behavior support brought about by a family-centered intervention focusing on parenting were associated with more adaptive emotion regulation, and whether more adaptive emotion regulation at age 3 in turn mediated the association between improvements in positive behavior support from ages 2-3 and decreases in the growth of conduct problems from ages 2-4.The results indicated that emotion regulation at age 3 was significantly associated with growth in conduct problems from ages 2-4. However, neither the intervention nor positive behavior support was significantly associated with emotion regulation. Results provide support for the notion that emotion regulation plays an important role in the growth of conduct problems in early childhood, but do not support the hypotheses that a family-centered intervention would result in more adaptive child emotion regulation strategies or that such changes in emotion regulation would mediate previously reported intervention effects between parenting and reductions in growth of child conduct problems
