Iris Heselmans, Marie Van Gaever, Hana Hoogers & Kurt Eggers

Objectives: Early difficulties in emotion regulation are associated with psychopathological, broader social, and developmental outcomes, underscoring the need for robust assessment tools at a young age. However, most of the existing instruments for preschoolers measure emotion regulation in general, without focusing on specific emotion regulation strategies. This study addresses a critical gap by validating a Dutch version of the Early Emotion Regulation Behavior Questionnaire (EERBQ), enabling researchers and practitioners to assess preschoolers’ emotion regulation strategies in both positive- as well as negative-emotion-eliciting situations outside of laboratory settings.

Methods: Through a rigorous back-translation process, the parental questionnaire was adapted into Dutch (EERBQ-Dutch) and subsequently validated with a sample of 299 Dutch-speaking caregivers of typically developing 2–7-year-old children. The test underwent psychometric analysis including inter-item correlations, item–total correlations, test–retest reliability, and confirmatory factor analysis. Finally, potential sociodemographic predictors (i.e., age, sex, and socioeconomic status (SES)) of specific emotion regulation strategies were investigated.

Results: Psychometric analyses demonstrated strong reliability and validity, and a factor structure consistent with the original English questionnaire. Age and sex were found to be significant predictors of certain emotion regulation strategies, with more proficient use of adaptive emotion regulation strategies over time and girls employing more Verbal Help-Seeking and less Physical Venting and Reactivity compared to boys. SES only contributed to Emotional Reactivity with a higher SES predicting more Reactivity.

Conclusions: Our findings support the EERBQ-Dutch as a reliable and culturally appropriate instrument for assessing early emotion regulation and provide insight into key predictors of emotion regulation strategies.