Introduction

Children whose mothers go to prison are at high risk for poor outcomes (Amlund Hagen et al. 2005; Dallaire 2007; Johnston 1995; Myers et al. 1999). Their mothers’ incarceration is not the first difficulty these children face, as nearly all live in poverty and with multi-problem families (Johnston 1995; Myers et al. 1999). Family problems of addiction and criminality often stretch across the current and previous generations, affecting aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents (Greene et al. 2000). School-aged children of incarcerated mothers often struggle with multiple home and school displacements, which in turn can disrupt academic performance and family and peer relationships (Green and Scholes 2004; Myers et al. 1999). When the caregiving situation is not stable, they are especially likely to have insecure attachment relationships with both mothers and caregivers (Poehlmann 2005), which can have a negative impact on behavior throughout a child’s development. These children are at high risk for externalizing disorders, internalizing disorders, school dropout, delinquency, and an increased risk of lawbreaking as adults (Amlund Hagen et al. 2005; Broidy et al. 2003: Johnston 1995; Myers et al. 1999; Sameroff et al. 2003). Phillips and Harm (1997) characterized the children with incarcerated mothers as experiencing “enduring trauma.” However, not every child with an incarcerated mother experiences problems. Thus it is proposed that many children show resilience in the face of these risk factors and resistance to these behavioral problems.

While the particular circumstances are always individual, the underlying mechanisms that influence children’s reactions to life’s difficulties are the same across contexts. Children’s emotions, and the ability to manage their emotions, are fundamental to how they feel about themselves and how they get along with others (Eisenberg et al. 1995, 1997). Humans are moral creatures, and children develop their morality through the interaction of their own emotional disposition and temperament, their cognitive development, their spiritual tradition, and the influences of family and peers (Eisenberg 2000; Eisenberg and Valiente 2002; Forman et al. 2004; Tangney et al. 1996). Emotion regulation and moral emotions work together to influence a range of coping abilities. These factors have been considered individually but are brought together in the present study.

Emotional self- regulation develops as a way to control and manage emotions, including emotions that spark aggression or provoke sadness and anxiety (Lewis et al. 2006). According to Cole et al. (2004), emotions are inherently regulating; however, the process of regulating emotions varies according to the context. Neurophysiological, cognitive, and social processes impact how children regulate their emotions (Cole et al. 2004; Eisenberg and Morris 2002).

Children with poor emotion regulation are at risk for poor outcomes. These children have trouble getting along with both adults and peers and are at a higher risk for future aggressive behavior problems, conduct problems, substance abuse, and psychopathy (Eisenberg et al. 1995, 1996; Frick et al. 2003; Frick and Morris 2004). Poor emotion regulation has been linked to internalizing problems as well (Cole et al. 1996; Nelson et al. 1999; Rubin et al. 1995). The child who is sad much of the time, who cannot hold back tears or expressions of fear, is also showing poor regulation of emotions. Besides the misery of being sad or scared, this child is also at risk for teasing and rejection by peers (Shields and Cicchetti 2001). Alternately, the child with better emotion regulation both feels better and is more socially competent (Denham 1998; Eisenberg 2000). Poor emotion regulation, combined with the experience of maternal incarceration, may put a child at much greater risk for behavior problems than any one of these factors by themselves.

The moral emotions of guilt and shame help inhibit socially maladaptive behaviors (Tangney et al. 1996). Guilt and shame are both self-relevant emotions, experienced when someone has done something morally or socially unacceptable (Tangney et al. 1996). Both involve cognition, specifically a self-concept (Eisenberg 2000; Lewis 1992); self-awareness and an understanding of standards and rules are necessary for both guilt and shame to occur. These two moral emotions differ, though, in ways important to the mental health and well-being of children. Guilt, with its focus on the specific misdeed or failure rather than the “self,” is the healthier moral emotion. The person who feels guilt accepts responsibility for the misdeed, is sorry for doing it, and would like to make amends. Shame, on the other hand, brings emotional pain. Children who feel shame feel worthless and powerless, and, in addition to their own negative self-evaluation, feel that they are being negatively evaluated by others. Guilt says, “I did something wrong,” while shame says, “I am wrong.” Further, the experience of shame generates other-related emotions of anger and hostility (Lewis 1971; Scheff 1987; Tangney 1990; Tangney et al. 1996) as well as depression and anxiety in children (Tangney et al. 1995).

Callous-unemotional (CU) traits include characteristics such as arrogance, lacking remorse and empathy, and being manipulative and deceitful (Cooke et al. 2004; Farrington 2005). Frick et al. (2003) found that lack of guilt (in instances where guilt was warranted) was related to callous-unemotional traits in children and youth with conduct disorder. These youth form a more-severe subgroup of children with conduct problems who are at greater risk for delinquency. Youth high in CU traits experience a “reduced level of distress over the consequences of their behavior” (Frick and White 2008, p. 8). In addition, individuals high in CU traits are proactively aggressive (using aggression to planfully achieve social and material goals (Kimonis et al. 2006), lack guilt and empathy (Frick et al. 2003), and express low levels of fearful inhibitions (Frick and Marsee 2006). Callous-unemotional traits show stability from late childhood to early adolescence (Munoz and Frick 2007; Obradovic et al. 2007); remarkably, CU traits in boys in middle childhood predicted psychopathy at 18–19 years (Burke et al. 2007) and up to age 24 in a longitudinal study by Lyman et al. (2007). While Frick and White (2008) suggest that although CU traits show stability, these traits are not unchangeable (see longitudinal studies by Frick et al. 2003; Lyman et al. 2007). They propose that factors in a child’s psychosocial environment can be protective; these protective factors may include parental socioeconomic status, severity of the symptoms of conduct disorder in a particular child, and the quality of parenting that the child receives.

Camps have often been used as settings for research and intervention with at risk children, such as children who have been maltreated (Kim and Cicchetti 2003; Murray-Close et al. 2008; Shields and Cicchetti 1998), with disruptive behaviors (Wright et al. 2007), with learning disabilities (Mishna 2005), minimal-brain damage (Kronick 1969), and with ADHD (Pelham et al. 2000). Camps provide an intense experience with peers and adult mentors. The children quickly form a community and experience a social microcosm of the cabin groups and camp environment to promote beneficial changes (Berkovitz and Sugar 1986; Vinter 1965) that is substantially different from the urban environment in which they live. Camp children are under constant supervision of adults, who can provide immediate reinforcement for desired behavior and correction for misbehavior.

We have worked with and conducted research in a camp setting with children affected by mothers’ incarceration for a decade (Amlund Hagen et al. 2005; Myers et al. 1999). It was hypothesized that children who are successful in regulating their emotions would report lower levels of the negative moral emotion of shame, and higher levels of the positive moral emotion of guilt, when they contemplated misdeeds. Further, it was hypothesized that these better-regulated children would exhibit lowers levels of both internalizing and externalizing behaviors, as well as a lower level of callous-unemotional traits, in a real-life camp setting with peers and adults.

Method

Participants

Participants were 50 children (6–12 years; 62% girls) with an incarcerated mother, who attended a week-long, sleep-over summer camp held specifically for this population of children. The mean age of the children was 9.8 years (SD = 1.5). Fifty-four percent identified themselves as African-American, 30% as European American, and 16% as mixed race. Caregivers of 73 campers (61% of those attending camp) returned consents for their children to participate. Of those who returned consents, 19 (16%) of caregivers reported that children’s mothers were now released from prison, and their data are not included in order to maintain the focus on children whose parents were currently incarcerated. Four children did not complete the measures. Of the 50 participants, 35 (70%) lived with their grandmothers or grandmother and grandfather, while the remaining lived with other family members (primarily aunts or fathers).

Procedure

The camp was provided to children at no charge. The only inclusionary criterion for this study was that they had a currently incarcerated mother. Children who came to camp with a signed consent were interviewed individually. Interviewers were psychology graduate students and faculty who spent the full week at camp with the children. Children had the study explained and signed their assent before proceeding with the interview. The interviewers read all the questions and recorded the children’s answers.

The adult measures were completed by camp mentors, adult volunteers who supervised and camped with the children all week. The mentors came to know their children well, as they ate with them, participated in camp activities, supervised them in the cabins day and night, and were generally in charge of them 24 h a day for a week. Each mentor was assigned only one or two children, and children and mentors were same-gender. Mentors participated in a training period the Saturday prior to camp, during which time they were trained in the goals of the camp, the guidelines of the study, and the behaviors that were to be measured by the study; at this time, mentors signed consents. At the end of the week, mentors completed questionnaires for their assigned children. The study was approved by a University Institutional Review Board (IRB). Participation in the study was an optional activity of the camp, and participants received no compensation.

Measures: Children

Emotion Regulation

The Early Adolescent Temperament Scale-Revised (EATQ-R): Self Report (Ellis and Rothbart 1999) is a 65-item self report measure designed to assess aspects of temperament related to emotional self-regulation in children and youth. Sample questions from the EATQ-R are “If I get really mad at someone, I might hit them” (aggression) and “I get irritated when I have to stop doing something that I am enjoying” (frustration). Participants choose from 5 Likert-style responses, ranging from (1) “Almost always untrue of you” to (5) “Almost always true for you.” Two sub-scales were used for this study—Aggression and Frustration. In the present study, the internal reliability alphas were .74 for the Aggression subscale and .65 for the Frustration subscale. When the Aggression and Frustration scales were combined, the internal reliability was .76, thus the decision was made to analyze the data using the combined subscales as a measure of emotion regulation. Higher scores indicated poorer emotional self-regulation and social-emotional functioning. The Inhibitory Control subscale was not used due to poor internal reliability.

Moral Emotions

The moral emotions of shame-proneness and guilt-proneness were measured with the Test of Self-Conscious Affect for Children (TOSCA-C; Tangney et al. 1990). The TOSCA-C is a self-report, scenario-based instrument designed for 8–12 year old children. Each scenario includes a picture and a short statement. For each scenario, children rate on a five-point scale the extent they would think or feel a certain way. For example, children are provided with the scenario, “You get a test back in school and you didn’t do well.” Then they are asked to rate how likely they are to agree with statements representing feelings of guilt (e.g., “I’d feel I should have done better. I should have studied more”) and shame (e.g., “I’d feel stupid”). The measure has ten scenarios, and scores are a mean of the child’s rating for each moral emotion. For this sample, the internal reliability (Cronbach’s alpha) estimates for the measure were .69 for the shame scale and .84 for the guilt scale.

Internalizing/Externalizing Behavior

A subset of questions from the Internalizing and Externalizing subscales of the Youth Self-Report (YSR) (Achenbach 1991) were used. The YSR is an empirically derived, well-established, widely used instrument with excellent psychometric properties (Christenson 1992) that measures the respondent’s perceptions of his or her own behavior in eight problem areas. The YSR requires a fifth grade reading level for children who are filling it out themselves, but can be read aloud to children who are younger. It has also been used in previous research with children with incarcerated mothers in the age range of this study (Amlund Hagen et al. 2005). At the request of the university IRB, five items were removed due to concern about “self-incrimination.” These items were: I destroy things belonging to others; I physically attack people; I set fires; I steal from places other than home; I use alcohol or drugs for non-medical purposes. Reliability alpha for the externalizing scale was .90, and for the internalizing scale, .86 with this sample. Raw scores were used. Higher scores indicated more problems.

Callous-Unemotional Traits

The Antisocial Process Screening Device (Frick and Hare 2001) is a 20-item self- report scale designed to assess callous (i.e., feeling no sympathy) and unemotional traits in youth. These traits are indicative of psychopathy in adults. The ASPD contains three subscales and two items not included on subscales. All six items in the callous-unemotional subscale were reverse coded. Children rate themselves as 0 for “not at all true”, 1 if “sometimes true”, and 2 for “definitely true.” A sample C/U item is, “You are concerned about the feelings of others.” At the request of the IRB, one non-C/U item was removed: You engage in illegal activities. The reliability alpha for the C/U subscale was .50 when item 19 was removed - you keep the same friends. Thus in completing analyses for this study, only five items were used to create the C/U subscale score. Higher scores indicated more callous-unemotional traits.

Measures: Adult

Emotion Regulation

The Emotion Regulation Checklist (ERC; Shields and Cicchetti 1997) was used to evaluate an adult’s perception of a child’s typical method of managing emotional experiences. It is appropriate for impoverished, inner-city children in the 6–12 age range (Shields and Cicchetti 1997). The 24 items make up two subscales. The Lability/Negativity subscale is a measure of poor emotion regulation due to inflexibility, lability, and dysregulated negative affect (e.g., mood swings). An example of a Lability/Negativity statement is “[child] takes pleasure in the distress of others (for example, laughs when another person gets hurt or punished; enjoys teasing others).” The Emotion Regulation subscale evaluates empathy, appropriate emotional expression, and emotional self-awareness, measured by items such as “[child] is a cheerful child.” Internal reliability was .78 for the Lability/Negativity subscale and .77 for the Emotion Regulation subscale with this sample. Higher scores for the Lability/Negativity subscale indicate poorer emotion regulation, whereas higher scores on the Emotion Regulation subscale indicate better emotion regulation.

Internalizing/Externalizing Behavior Measures

Subscales of the Teacher Report Form (Achenbach 1991: TRF), 57 items, were used to measure internalizing and externalizing problems of children age 4–18 years. The TRF is modeled on the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and measures adult observations of children’s behaviors. Items are rated 0 (not true, as far as you know), 1 (somewhat or sometimes true), or 2 (very true or often true). Wording was changed from “school” to “camp” when necessary (e.g., “Disobedient at school” was changed to “Disobedient at camp”). The internal reliabilities for this sample were .87 for Internalizing behaviors and .97 for Externalizing behaviors. As with the children’s YSR scale, the same items were removed at the request of the IRB to avoid “incriminating” the children in illegal activities.

Callous-Unemotional Traits

The Antisocial Process Screening Device-Teacher Edition (ASPD; Frick and Hare 2001) is a behavior rating scale used by adults to measure Callous-Unemotional traits (six items), as well as traits of Narcissism and Impulsivity, in children. Only the C/U subscale was used in this study. One item was removed at the request of the IRB, but this was not an item in the C/U subscale. The internal reliability for the C/U subscale was .80 (Cronbach’s alpha) when number 19 was removed, so the subscale used for this study included five items only. Higher scores indicated more callous-unemotional traits.

Results

Means, standard deviations, and ranges for all variables are presented in Table 1. Intercorrelations among all variables are presented in Table 2. Overall, scores on the adult- and child-reported measures correlated in the expected directions. Regression analyses for hypotheses using child reports and adult reports are shown in Tables 3 and 4, respectively. Cross-informant regression analyses are shown in Table 5. The dependent variables for these analyses are externalizing, internalizing and callous-unemotional traits. Age and gender were entered in Step 1. Predictors, such as emotion regulation and moral emotions, were entered in Step 2.

Table 1 Means, standard deviations, and ranges for all child and adult variables (N = 50)
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Table 2 Intercorrelations for gender, age, moral emotions and adult and child measures of emotion regulation, callous-unemotional traits, and internalizing and externalizing behaviors
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Table 3 Hierarchical regression analysis examining predictors of externalizing and internalizing behaviors, and callous-unemotional traits—child report (N = 50)
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Table 4 Hierarchical regression analysis examining predictors of externalizing and internalizing behaviors, and callous-unemotional traits—adult report (N = 50)
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Table 5 Hierarchical regression analysis examining adult predictors of child reported externalizing and internalizing behaviors, and callous-unemotional traits (N = 50)
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Child Report

Age and gender combined in Step 1 were responsible for a significant portion of the variance (13%) in externalizing behaviors (F (2, 47) = 3.54, p < .05). Older children reported higher externalizing behavior. Age and gender combined did not predict internalizing behavior or callous/unemotional traits.

Emotion regulation and the moral emotions of guilt and shame were entered as a set in Step 2 and contributed significant variance to each of the outcome variables. These three factors contributed an additional 43% of variance in externalizing behaviors (F (3, 44) = 14.19, p < .001), 23% of additional variance in internalizing behaviors (F (3, 44) = 4.45, p < .01), and an insignificant amount of additional variance in callous-unemotional traits, after controlling for age and gender. The semi-partial correlations show how each of the constructs contributed to the outcome scores. Poor emotion regulation contributed significant variance to both externalizing and internalizing behaviors (at p < .001 and p < .01, respectively). The moral emotion of guilt predicted significant additional variance to externalizing behaviors and callous-unemotional traits; lower levels of guilt contributed the variance. Neither guilt nor shame was a significant predictor of internalizing behaviors. (See Table 3).

Child age and gender, entered together at Step 1, significantly contributed to callous-unemotional traits. Gender predicted adult-reported child externalizing behaviors and callous-unemotional traits, with mentors reporting that boys exhibited more of the problematic behaviors than girls (F (2, 47) = 5.03, p < .01 for externalizing behaviors; F (2, 47) = 6.68, p < .01 for callous-unemotional traits). Age did not contribute to the outcomes. Neither age nor gender contributed significant variance to internalizing behaviors.

At Step 2, Emotion Regulation (made up of positive emotion regulation and lability/negativity) was a significant predictor of the three adult-reported child outcomes after controlling for age and gender, contributing 64% additional variance to externalizing behaviors (F (2, 45) = 77.1, p < .001), 27% additional variance to internalizing behaviors (F (2, 45) = 8.43, p < .001), and 36% additional variance to callous-unemotional traits (F (2, 45) = 19.68, p < .001). Higher scores on positive emotion regulation predicted lower internalizing behaviors (p < .05), and unexpectedly, higher callous-unemotional traits (p < .001). Higher scores on the lability/negativity subscale predicted only an increase in externalizing behaviors (p < .001). (See Table 4).

Cross-Informant

Adult-reported emotion regulation was used as a predictor for child-reported outcomes. Age and gender were again used as predictors in Step 1. Gender was a significant predictor of only externalizing behaviors, indicating that adults scored boys higher than girls (F (2, 47) = 3.54, p < .05) Higher scores of adult-reported Lability/Negativity were predictive of higher child-reported externalizing behavior (F (3, 44) = 5.13, p < .01). Adult-reported Lability/Negativity did not predict child-reported internalizing behavior nor callous-unemotional traits. The adult-reported positive emotion regulation did not predict any of the child-reported outcomes. (See Table 5).

Discussion

Children with incarcerated mothers are exposed to numerous factors and experiences that make them a unique group of at-risk children. Over multiple years of camp experience with these children, we find some children who are kind, friendly, responsive, and well-behaved. A noticeable percentage, though, are almost impervious to camp rules and adult guidance. Emotional regulation processes and moral emotions were examined in an attempt to understand the externalizing and internalizing behaviors shown by the more challenging children in this at-risk group, including the critical antisocial behaviors identified through callous-unemotional traits.

As expected, children’s inability to regulate their emotions was related to their problem behavior. Ratings by both adults and children showed that children who were less able to regulate their emotions engaged in significantly more problem behaviors, but only the adult mentors noted the relation between a child’s ability to regulate their emotions while exhibiting callous-unemotional traits. In this study, the relationship between poor emotion regulation and negative behavior was clear. The children of incarcerated mothers who are having a difficult time controlling their emotions are experiencing more problematic feelings and behaviors, both within themselves and directed against others. But those children who were monitoring and managing their emotions well could still demonstrate CU traits, and adults noted this.

The adults observed the CU traits in children who were able to regulate and control their emotions, while other children who were exhibiting problematic behavior were struggling with their ability to regulate their own emotions. This finding supports the idea that C/U traits are, indeed, a unique and independent set of traits (Frick and White 2008). Children who express these traits often do not feel empathy for their victims, lack remorse for the antisocial behaviors in which they engage, and can be very manipulative (Frick and Marsee 2006). Children with CU traits are also less likely to alter their behaviors in response to punishment (Blair et al. 2006; Dadds et al. 2006). Therefore, it is interesting to note that the mentors were able to distinguish between antisocial behaviors and another group of children who were able to manage their emotions, yet not be concerned about others’ feelings, not feel bad or guilty when they did something wrong, not care about doing well at camp, not be able to keep promises, and are able to hide their feelings and emotions from others. Research has also noted that preadolescent youth with C/U traits are at greater risk of developing early onset disruptive behavior disorder diagnoses than those individuals with problem behaviors without C/U traits (Christian et al. 1997). Thus it is possible that the group of children with incarcerated mothers who express CU traits may be the more at-risk group within this population of children.

However, there were also children for whom poor emotion regulation was predictive of their problematic behaviors. The reasons for poor emotion regulation may stem from multiple factors. Children may not be exposed to adult and peer models of good emotional regulation. Dunn and Brown (1994) found that children’s emotional understanding was poorer in families with higher levels of negative affect or distress. Therefore, children who are surrounded by poor models of emotion regulation may themselves develop poor emotion regulation capabilities. This is only speculation, however, as we do not have evidence of how their families or their peers at home behave.

Direct teaching, both about emotion display rules and how to regulate emotional arousal, is an important avenue through which children learn to regulate their emotions. Talking about prosocial behavior and emotional regulation has been found to help the development of emotion regulation in low-income African American preschoolers (Garner 2006). On the other hand, ignoring, denying, or dismissing children’s emotions predicts emotional dysregulation (Eisenberg et al. 1996). It is possible that the children who showed poor emotion regulation during this week at camp lacked direct teaching about appropriate emotional responses from adults in their homes, schools, and neighborhoods. In other words, it is possible that they have not been socialized enough about identifying and managing their own emotions to have learned to regulate themselves appropriately. They stand in contrast with the emotionally well-regulated children who were enjoying themselves and following camp rules; this latter group may have experienced better emotional guidance and instruction at home. Again, though, we do not have the evidence to test whether this was the pathway, and this is a key direction for future research.

Emotions not only regulate other behaviors, but can themselves be affected by other factors as well. According to Cole et al. (2004), emotion regulation is neither “good” nor “bad,” as often dichotomized, but is a contributing agent to individuals’ ability to organize their attention, responses, and actions in any number of interpersonal interactions and relationships. Children with incarcerated mothers experience multiple demographic and psychosocial risk factors (Dallaire 2007). Higher levels of accumulated risks have been found to predict lower levels of competent emotional self-regulation (Lengua 2002). Emotional self- regulation has been found to mediate distal ecological risk factors associated with poverty (e.g. neighborhood violence, residential crowding) and children’s development of behavior problems (Aber et al. 2000; Maughan and Cicchetti 2002). For all children, it is the accumulation of risks, rather than any one in particular, that places them at risk for adjustment problems (Rutter 1979). Children with incarcerated mothers who have developed the ability to manage their emotional responses by staying stable in the face of multiple psychosocial challenges are successfully negotiating the spiral of negative events that may surround them at school, in their neighborhoods, and amongst family and peers.

Of the moral emotions investigated in this study, both guilt and shame significantly predicted externalizing behaviors, but only guilt had a relationship with callous-unemotional traits. Neither of the moral emotions was significantly related to internalizing behaviors. As predicted, children with healthy levels of guilt had less misbehavior, or fewer externalizing problems. Higher levels of guilt also predicted lower levels of callous-unemotional traits. In other words, children reporting healthy guilt were able to behave themselves at camp and did not fall prey to the manipulative, deceitful, or non-remorseful behaviors that are part of callous-unemotional traits.

It is important to understand the impact that moral feelings can have on children. Guilt is an adaptive moral emotion (Tangney 1995). A person who feels guilty after wrongdoing accepts responsibility and wants to make amends. The internal discomfort is real, and it is something that can be relieved by efforts to apologize and make things right. Feeling guilty about wrongdoing is associated with prosocial and altruistic behavior (Tangney 1991). Shame, in contrast, does not help the child “make things right” but instead causes its own difficulties. The focus of shame is on the self, with resultant feelings of powerlessness and psychological pain. Shame is associated with lessened ability to empathize and to inhibit interpersonal aggression. The resulting behavioral responses to shame-proneness are to avoid, escape, hide—or attack. Shame-proneness is correlated with proneness to anger in both boys and girls, and further, this anger is often managed in an “unconstructive fashion” (Tangney 1995, p. 1140).

Feelings of guilt when tempted to misbehave are adaptive in helping children control their behavior. When children experience feelings of shame, however, they withdraw into themselves. Too much shame is associated with children disengaging from their surroundings and continuing in the direction of self-blame and self-condemnation. It is hard to reach a child at this point, for it is difficult to reach a child and change behavior when the child feels worthless.

The predictors of CU traits in children with incarcerated mothers were as expected. Adults noted the children’s ability to regulate their thoughts and feelings, while children noted their own lack of feelings of guilt over wrongdoings. Our children who had high CU traits seemed to know the difference between right and wrong and decided to do what was wrong anyway. Our finding that many of these children have CU traits raises concern in light of previous work that suggests children with incarcerated mothers are at risk for later delinquency and criminal activity (Johnston 1995). Considerable research on CU traits in children has found them to be a stable predictor of psychopathy in adolescence (Burke et al. 2007; Frick and White 2008) and possibly into adulthood (Lyman et al. 2007). Of particular concern is the hypothesis that there may be neural propensities to CU traits, in combination with temperamental, social, and environmental factors (Frick and White 2008). Greene et al. (2000) offer a social explanation, writing about the incarcerated mothers’ “criminogenic” families of origin and creation, and concluding that “the cycles of pain to which these incarcerated women were exposed are being replicated in the lives of their own children” (p. 16). Finally, the prospect of callous-unemotional traits being heritable is another possibility (Viding et al. 2008). As with cases of heritability, the gene-environment interaction may increase—or decrease—the likelihood of the expression of any particular genotype. Caspi et al. (2002) noted that levels of the neurotransmitter-metabolizing enzyme monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) may interact with child maltreatment to produce levels of antisocial behavior in boys, with boys with higher levels of MAOA less likely to develop antisocial problems. Thus it may be possible that some of the environmental factors faced by children with incarcerated mothers may interact with genotypic predispositions resulting in more problematic behaviors. Although beyond the scope of the present study, it illustrates the importance of intervention and prevention efforts to improve the context in which these children develop and by no means suggests that every child who experiences maternal incarceration is predestined for engaging in criminal behavior.

As with any study, there were limitations of the present study. The goal of this study was to examine processes that might explain the high levels of externalizing behaviors and callous-unemotional traits exhibited by children who have an incarcerated mother and only selected factors were examined. Additional, within-child factors, such as intelligence, were not explored. Early developmental histories were not collected, and we have no measure of attachment and/or caregiving. Additional demographic information, such as reaction to mother’s incarceration, adjustment to the kin caregiver, financial stability of the kin caregiver’s home, safety of the home neighborhood, and other details, might have helped answer some questions about factors impacting our outcomes. Some of these factors might have helped explore protective factors experienced by the children in the study.

Data for this study were collected from camp participants and their mentors. There may be sample bias in this study towards children who are living in the most stable and favorable of alternative home environments. The fact that their family caregivers arranged to send the children in their care to camp for a week suggests that the children are living in a supportive home environment. Families who learn about the camp must fill out applications and mail them in. They must cooperate with the transportation plans. They must have the children packed and ready to be picked up on the right day. Therefore, those children who are living in the most at-risk and difficult situations after their mother’s incarceration are not likely to have been camp participants or in our sample.

Many children in this study showed healthy moral emotions and good emotional self-regulation, and these well-functioning children were happy and cooperative at camp; they played, learned to swim, and made friends. But a significant subset of the children showed problems. These children started fights, ran away from adults, refused to participate in activities, and caused chaos in their cabins. The poor emotion self-regulation that these children showed marks them as at risk of developing further difficulties, ranging from peer and relationship problems to psychopathy, particularly for those children with callous/unemotional traits. But believing that the children have the capacity to change is important; it is a belief in positive change that motivates intervention efforts such as this camp. Further investigation in what can turn these children toward resilient outcomes is badly needed.

Findings of this study fit with recent investigations into the effectiveness of violence prevention programs and the potential importance of emotion regulation in youth outcomes. Investigators are concluding that a model of intervention framed within a social cognitive model—the most frequent model for violence prevention programs—is not having the hoped-for effects of changing violent behavior (Farrell and Meyer 1997; Orpinas et al. 2000; Taub 2001). Researchers in this area are concluding that youth need interventions that include direct instruction and experience with emotional self-regulation. Lemerise and Arsenio (2000) support these findings with a modified model of social competence. They have proposed that emotional processes (e.g., emotion recognition and empathic responsiveness) should be woven into a social information processing model. They suggest that a failure to understand the emotional content of children’s knowledge structures (that is, about how to behave) limits our ability to intervene and effect change in behavioral outcomes (Lemerise and Arsenio 2000). We suggest that the lesson being discussed in youth violence prevention circles—that emotion regulation needs to be directly taught—is likely relevant to our work with children experiencing family incarceration. Lessons relevant to moral emotions are also needed. We need to test, for example, whether the morality-based lessons and activities offered in faith-based settings have an impact on children’s admission of guilt when they have done wrong and their ability to resist the temptation for wrong-doing. The goal is to improve the psychological well-being and social functioning of all children, especially those most at-risk.

While some suggest that results of measures such as the Inventory of Callous-Unemotional Traits when used with children ages 6–12 should be viewed with caution (Sharp and Kine 2008), it is important to recognize the current trend toward early identification of callous-unemotional traits and the possible pathways to adult psychopathy. This is strongly indicated by recent issues of publications largely dedicated to this research (e.g. Behavioral Sciences and the Law (2003, 2004), Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology (2005), and Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology (2007, Issue 3). This study has supported the significant relationship between the moral emotion of guilt and higher levels of CU traits in children who have experienced the incarceration of their mother. Rather than suggest that these children are headed toward lives of crime—and that is not our belief—it is important to recognize their unique at-risk status and to develop and test strategies that may support their resilience.