ABSTRACT
The Coping with Toddlers’ Negative Emotions Scale (CTNES) assesses parents’ emotional socialization of toddlers. The original measure is lengthy, with 82 items in total, and no short-form version is available to date. The objective of the current study was to create a short-form version of the CTNES. We aimed to: (1) test the CTNES subscales individually via confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and remove items that have poor psychometric properties and (2) test construct validity and reliability of the short-form. Participants were a multinational sample of parents (N = 730) with children aged 1–3 years, from the Child and Parent Emotion Study. CTNES subscales were first tested via CFA with a calibration sample (50%, n = 365). Items with poor psychometric properties were removed, and the final short-form was cross-validated in the validation sample (50%, n = 365). A 24-item short-form was derived with four factors aligned with emotion coaching/supportive parenting (acknowledgement, expressive encouragement, problem-solving, and emotion-focused responses) and four factors aligned with emotion dismissing/suppressive parenting (punitive reactions, minimization reactions, distress reactions, and granting wish reactions). We found strong support for construct validity and reliability overall. The short-form CTNES presents a viable alternative to the original CTNES measure. The measure reflects an adapted version of the original CTNES, as it includes an “acknowledgement” subscale not included in the original.