Self-regulation skills are fundamental to the successful accomplishment of adaptive developmental tasks at all stages of life.1 Self-regulation is defined as one’s ability to manage verbal and non-verbal responses to stressors.2 The early childhood years represent a critical time in the development of self-regulation and underlying executive functioning skills. Organized and predictable home environments and emotionally positive parent-child relationships can provide a context that allows for the development of self-regulatory competencies, while in contrast, non-supportive parent-child relationships undermine children’s ability to self-regulate.1

Responsiveness, defined as emotionally supportive behaviors from parents3 during parent-child interactions,4, 5 represents one critical driver of child development across several domains, including cognitive and social-emotional development.6, 7, 8 Prior research has found that children’s self-regulation is related to maternal self-regulation, maternal education, and child gender.9, 10 Similarly, structural factors such as family instability and children’s externalizing behaviors are associated with non-supportive parent-child relationships,11 and lack of educational attainment is associated with poverty, directly impacting health practices.12 Research has found a significant association between maternal self-reported difficulties with emotional regulation and child behavioral problems.13 This is vital, as a child's self-regulating capacity is also directly associated with multiple health and academic outcomes. For example, children with self-regulation difficulties have a higher risk of developing behavioral problems, which in turn predict several challenges, such as mental, relational, and physical health concerns, throughout their lifespan.14 Despite these findings suggesting connections between both maternal self-regulation and responsiveness with children’s development, studies have yet to examine whether they might explain the association between maternal education and children’s self-regulation skills. Further, limits to previous work include the reliance on maternal self-report of behaviors only, which can result in social desirability bias in the self-reporting of such personal experiences. Thus, this study aims to (1) examine the association between maternal education and child self-regulation and (2) explore the extent to which observed maternal responsiveness and maternal self-reported regulation mediate the association between maternal education and child self-regulation.