Emotional Regulation and Anxiety Levels: Their Relationships in School Children from 9 to 11 Years of Age

Abstract

Anxiety is defined as a state of diffuse tension accompanied by physical sensations, which are induced by the expectation of danger, which can be linked to problems of emotional dysregulation in children. Objective: to know the relationship between the level of anxiety and emotional regulation in school children. Materials and method: the study is descriptive correlational, the Scale of Manifest Anxiety in Children Revised 2 and the Scale of Emotional Regulation Strategies for Children were applied to a sample of 228 participants of both genders between 9 and 11 years old belonging to a public school in Progreso de Obregon, Hidalgo, Mexico. Results: statistically significant correlations were found between the strategies that hinder the regulation of emotion and the subscales of total anxiety, physiological anxiety and social anxiety; while very low negative correlations were found between the strategies that facilitate the regulation of emotion and anxiety. Conclusions: children with higher levels of anxiety use strategies more, that hinder the regulation of emotion, which includes actions to manage the problematic situation through the use of aggressive behaviors, a tendency to abandon the situation and hide feelings.