Emotion Regulation and Psychological Adjustment in Residential Care: Relational and Gender Dynamics

Background

Adolescents living in residential care often have histories of adversity, relational disruption, and trauma that may affect their ability to understand, express, and regulate emotions. These emotional difficulties can increase vulnerability to psychological and behavioral problems. At the same time, professional caregivers can become significant relational figures in adolescents’ daily lives, providing emotional support, stability, and opportunities for co-regulation. However, little is known about how adolescents’ emotion regulation, their relationships with caregivers, and their psychological adjustment are related over time. Moreover, these processes may operate differently for boys and girls. This study examined whether the quality of youth-caregiver relationships helps explain the longitudinal association between emotion regulation and psychological adjustment among adolescents in residential care, while considering potential sex differences.

Method

The study followed 242 adolescents aged 12-18 years (55.4% girls; Mage = 15.55) living in 21 residential care facilities in Portugal. Adolescents were assessed across three time points over approximately 20 months. They reported on their emotion regulation, including emotional awareness and expression, the quality of their relationships with professional caregivers, and psychological adjustment problems, specifically emotional distress and anger control problems. We tested a longitudinal mediation model using Structural Equation Modeling and multigroup analyses to examine whether these associations differed between boys and girls.

Results

A significant indirect effect emerged only for boys. Contrary to our initial expectations, boys who reported lower emotion regulation at the first assessment subsequently perceived higher-quality relationships with their caregivers. In turn, higher relationship quality predicted fewer anger control problems at the final assessment. The relationship with caregivers fully mediated this longitudinal association. Boys also showed greater stability in anger control problems over time than girls. No mediation effect was found among girls.

Conclusion

These findings highlight the protective role of relationships with professional caregivers, particularly for boys who have difficulty understanding and expressing their emotions. Consistent, responsive, and emotionally available caregivers may provide important support for adolescents who have greater difficulty regulating emotions, contributing to more positive adjustment over time. The findings also emphasize that emotional and relational processes may operate differently for boys and girls, reinforcing the importance of considering sex-related differences when understanding and supporting adolescents in residential care.