Children’s Knowledge of Emotion Regulation Strategies Predicts Social-Emotional Competencies during Preschool and the Transition to Kindergarten

Leveraging a racially/ethnically and linguistically diverse sample of 1,458 preschoolers from a US public school district, we find bidirectional associations between children's self-reported knowledge of emotion regulation strategies and preschool teacher reports of social-emotional competencies. Strategy knowledge predicted kindergarten teacher ratings of social-emotional competencies over and above preschool teacher reports.