ABSTRACT
Parents are powerful, socializing agents in a child’s life. Most children develop their values, beliefs, and emotional and behavioral skills from watching and emulating their parents or caregivers. Olds (1997) wrote, “Parents’ behavior constitutes the most powerful and potentially alterable influence on the developing child” (p. 45). Included in this parental influence is the construct of emotional intelligence, or more specifically, how parents initiate and shape a child’s emotional knowledge base (Mayer & Salovey, 1997). Zeidner, Roberts, and Matthews (2002) endorsed two main factors that influence a child’s emotional intelligence: genetic endowment, or temperament, and parental socialization.
