Emotional and verbal communication in the family

Families communicate not only verbally, but also emotionally, and they communicate both with and about emotions. Yet surprisingly little research integrates the study of parent-child emotional and verbal communication. In this chapter, we summarize developmental changes in children's emotional communication and in family communication about emotions. We highlight the role of parent emotion expression in two domains: child language development and parental emotion socialization practices. We discuss gaps in the literature and future directions for research, advocating for integrated measurement of both emotional and verbal communication that captures family communication in dynamic and ecologically valid ways.