Yanmei Tang
Zilu Gan2*†- 1School of Early Childhood Education, Nanjing Xiaozhuang University, Nanjing, China
- 2Xiao Taiyang Kindergarten, Nanjing, China
This study aims to examine Chinese preschool teachers who have experienced childhood abuse in regard to their emotion regulation, as well as the chain mediating effects of resilience and current student-teacher relationships. A total of 528 Chinese female preschool teachers in Jiangsu province completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, Emotion Regulation Scale, Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, and the Student-Teacher Relationships Scale. The results show that experiencing childhood abuse and neglect positively influences expression suppression and negatively affects cognitive reappraisal of preschool teachers. Results also reveal that resilience and student-teacher relationships play a chain mediation between childhood abuse and neglect and cognitive reappraisal. This study recommends that local governments, communities and educational agencies should focus on the negative impact of childhood abuse and neglect, intervening the positive influences of resilience and healthy student-teacher relationships to improve preschool teachers’ emotion regulation ability and well-being.
1 Introduction
Plenty of social media reports on preschool teachers in China abuse children, which have raised widespread public concern about preschool teachers’ emotion regulation issues and emotional well-being (Jiang et al., 2021; Zhang et al., 2020). China’s Preschool Education Toward 2035 policy highlights the well-being of preschool teachers and encourages the ability to self-regulate emotions and maintain a peaceful state of mind, which is considered a key quality for working with young children (Jiang et al., 2021). According to Ion et al. (2023), emotion regulation is usually defined as the process of adjusting one’s emotional experiences and performances. How teachers regulate emotions and express their feelings often has implications for their professional goals, well-being, and for the positive development of their students (Brown et al., 2023). Therefore, this study explores the emotion regulation of Chinese preschool teachers with a history of prior childhood abuse and/ or neglect (CAN). What impacts are likely to result from these childhood traumas? What are the current roles of resilience as well as the ability to establish strong student-teacher relationships?
Emotion regulation is the process by which one attempts to regulate the frequency and intensity of emotion; that is, individual changes to a person’s physiology, behavior, and cognition to adjust their emotional experiences and performances, ultimately achieving the goal of adaptation (Gross, 2015). There are two commonly used emotion regulation strategies, including Cognitive Reappraisal (CR) and Expression Suppression (ES) (Gross, 1998). Cognition Reappraisal refers to individuals adjusting and changing their cognition in a timely manner before their emotions are too affected by negative events, which involves changing thoughts about a situation to change feelings (McRae, 2016). Expression Suppression involves continuous efforts of the individual to conceal emotion-expressive behaviors (Gross and Cassidy, 2019). Based on the Process Model of Emotion Regulation (Gross, 2015), Expressive Suppression should be less effective in altering negative emotions compared to Cognitive Reappraisal and is associated with social dysfunction and psychopathology. Also, Ion et al. (2023) reported that lower use of the Cognitive Reappraisal technique may be related to childhood abuse and neglect. Within Chinese sociocultural context, collectivist values and Confucian principles emphasizing emotional restraint encourage people to suppress rather than openly express emotions (Sze and Bao, 2025). This may impose unique pressures on teachers and lead to the preference for expressive suppression among Chinese preschool teachers in the classroom today.
1.1 Childhood abuse and neglect and emotion regulation problem
Historically, certain Chinese traditional childrearing concepts, such as “filial piety under the stick,” could evoke a specific, coercive model of obedience rooted in fear and authority, rather than voluntary respect (Zhang et al., 2024). Previous studies showed that 8.7% of Chinese children have experienced sexual abuse, 26.6% of them have experienced physical abuse, and 19.6% of children have experienced emotional abuse (Fang et al., 2015). The prevalence of physical neglect and emotional neglect among Chinese children is 26.0% (Fang et al., 2015).
The different forms of childhood abuse and neglect, such as physical abuse, physical neglect, emotional abuse, emotional neglect, and sexual abuse, could have a range of negative consequences for individuals (e.g., Lansford et al., 2021; Wood et al., 2019). For example, adults who have experienced childhood abuse possess increased risk of experiencing symptoms of depression and anxiety in adulthood (Knowles and Tolin, 2024). Importantly, experiences of abuse and neglect could impair one’s psychosocial function, and individuals with a history of abuse are more likely to experience emotion dysregulation (Hoffman et al., 2022; Knowles and Tolin, 2024). Ion et al. (2023) found that survivors of childhood abuse are inclined to use ineffective, unreasonable, or inappropriate emotion regulation strategies. Although O’Connor (2008) reported that childhood abuse has lifelong adverse effects on effective emotion regulation, how it influences different emotion regulation strategies is yet unknown in Chinese early education contexts.
1.2 Resilience as a potential mediator
Resilience is defined as a relatively stable, innate characteristic that is featured by psychological hardiness, ego resilience, and coping efficacy (Connor and Davidson, 2003). Teacher resilience as a personal trait, reflects a teacher’s competence to adapt to diverse situations and reinforce his/her capacity in confrontation with undesired conditions (Bobek, 2002). Likewise, Day and Gu (2014) reported that teacher resilience is the adaptation ability to maintain equilibrium and a sense of commitment, agency, and moral purpose in the everyday context of teaching. This aligns with the concept of “relational agency,” where a teacher’s capacity to act is directed toward collaboratively understanding and responding to a students’ needs (Edwards, 2012; Masten, 2001). A teacher with higher levels of resilience may also have more coping strategies to regulate their emotions (Ning et al., 2024).
Previous literature showed that adverse childhood experiences like abuse and neglect were negatively related to resilience [e.g., Fares-Otero et al., 2023; Hinojosa and Hinojosa (2024)]. According to the Theory of Resilience (Masten, 2001), disadvantageous childhood experiences could have positive consequences, such as promoting resilience, which helps reduce the effect of intergenerational trauma. Furthermore, traumatic stress as a critical factor determining resilience may influence people’s ability to manage emotions (Wood et al., 2019). However, the associations and underlying mechanism between childhood abuse exposure in early life and resilience in adulthood, and how to use different emotion regulation strategies remain unclear (Ning et al., 2024).
1.3 Student- teacher relationships as another potential mediator
In China, Early Learning and Development Guidelines for Children Aged 3 to 6 Years support good student-teacher relationships should be established for children lifelong and teachers career development (Jiang et al., 2021). For example, Köles et al. (2013) reported that children-preschool teachers’ meaningful relationships would allow teachers to guide and stimulate them; in turn, teachers’ comfort could help children feel more safe and secure. Compared to children, teachers are better able to foster high quality student-teacher relationships (Wang et al., 2024).
Previous research showed teachers who suffered childhood abuse and neglect have heightened risk of developing social relationship, resulting in the inability to deal with normal communication with children, thus affecting the student-teacher relationships (Wang and Chen, 2023). In the light of the Attachment Theory, neglect and abuse in childhood would have a negative impact on people’s future social interaction, such as forming an insecure attachment or unhealthy interpersonal relationships (Fonagy et al., 2023; Kumari, 2020). And positive interactions with children are rewarding and could be a source of joy and fulfillment, which may buffer against stress and make it easier for the teachers to maintain their own emotional balance (De Nobile et al., 2021).
However, research regarding the influence of teachers’ internal psychological characteristics on the student-teacher relationships is relatively scarce (Wang et al., 2024). Köles et al. (2013) showed teachers with higher levels of neuroticism and depression tended to have more conflicted relationships with children. Day (2008) revealed that teachers with resilient traits could create an effective relationship with children. In addition, previous research found that teacher-student relationships were positively associated with emotion regulation (Ocak Karabay, 2017). But whether and how the relationship perception of preschool teachers with children is related to emotion regulation and resilience is unknown. According to the above literature, one of the aims in this study is to explore the relationship among preschool teachers with a history of childhood abuse and neglect, resilience, student-teacher relationships and different emotion regulation strategies.
1.4 The current study
Given the above theoretical and empirical literature, there could be a strong connection across the four variables, which has not been paid sufficient attention to. Nonetheless, previous research also limited instead on the relationships between the two factors or one of the factors as an intermediary variable. Therefore, based on the previous relevant studies, this study is founded on Process Model of Emotion Regulation (Gross, 2015), Theory of Resilience (Masten, 2001), and Attachment Theory (Fonagy et al., 2023), and build a chain intermediary hypothesis model between the occurrence of abuse and neglect in the childhoods of preschool teachers, resilience and the student-teacher relationships, emotion regulation, including CR and ES (Figure 1).
Figure 1. The hypothesized model.
H1: CAN significantly relates to preschool teachers’ emotion regulation (CR H1a, ES H1b).
H2: Resilience mediates the relationship between CAN and emotion regulation (CR H2a, ES H2b).
H3: Resilience positively predicts emotion regulation (H3a); student-teacher relationships positively influence emotion regulation (H3b).
H4: Student-teacher relationships play a mediating role between CAN and emotion regulation (CR H4a, ES H4b).
H5: Resilience and student-teacher relationships play a chain mediating effect in the relationship between CAN and emotion regulation (CR H5a, ES H5b).
2 Method
2.1 Participants
Random cluster sampling and convenient sampling were used to select participants in Jiangsu Province. Before the formal survey, they were requested to provide the electronic informed consent through the internet. When conducting the research survey, we need permission from preschools. Preschool administrators help us to send websites or QR code to their in-service preschool teachers’ Weixin and QQ qun (chat tools). After completing and submitting the survey, they would be debriefed. The whole survey is anonymous, and all participants are voluntary. The survey was authorized by the Research Ethics Committee at Nanjing Xiaozhuang University in China (the research ethics code is 2024102).
Notably, the sample reflects the typical composition of preschool workforce in China and the global, where females are the overwhelming majority. As shown in Table 1, the final sample is 528 female teachers with a mean age = 25.25 (SD = 5.05), ranging from 18 to 57. In terms of education, the largest group possess a bachelor’s degree (97.2%). The largest group in terms of teaching experience is less than 5 years (84.8%). In terms of the types of preschools, 366 subjects (69.3%) teach in public preschools and 162 (30.7%) teach in private preschools. For monthly income, the largest group (37.3%) earned less than 3,000 RMB monthly (roughly US$ 423), and the second largest group (31.4%) earned from 3,001–4,000 RMB monthly (roughly US$ 424–564).
Table 1. The profile of participants (N = 528).
2.2 The measurements
2.2.1 Childhood trauma questionnaire (CTQ)
The CTQ is used to test abuse and neglect experienced in early childhood (Bernstein et al., 1997). This scale consisted of 28 items, and 3 validity evaluation questions. Sample items are “I did not have enough to eat” (physical neglect), “I felt loved” (emotional neglect; reverse scored), “Someone molested me” (sexual abuse), “I believe that I was physically abused” (physical abuse), and “I felt that someone in my family hated me” (emotional abuse). Items are rated on a 5-point Likert scale from 1 (never) to 5 (always). The higher the total score indicates the more severe the childhood abuse and neglect. The Chinese version of CTQ has strong reliability and validity (Jiang et al., 2018). In this study, the Cronbach’s α coefficient of CTQ was 0.80. The confirmatory factor analysis shows a good fit: χ2 /df = 3.0, RMSEA = 0.06, standardized root mean residual (SRMR) = 0.08, comparative fit index (CFI) = 0.91, normed fit index (NFI) = 0.87, Tucker Lewis index (TLI) = 0.91. For the CFI, NFI and TLI, values of ≥ 0.95 are commonly used to indicate a good model fit, however, Browne and Cudeck (1993) argue that these thresholds are too strict and rather recommend a threshold of > 0.90 to indicate a good model fit and values of 0.80–0.90 indicates an acceptable model fit.
2.2.2 Emotion regulation scale (ERS)
The original 14-item ERS (Gross and John, 2003) was used to explore participants’ preference for CR and ES strategies in emotion regulation. Sample items are “When faced with a situation that makes me angry, I change the way I view the problem to alleviate my anger” (CR), or “When I feel happy, I will try my best not to show it” (ES). Questions are answered on a 7-point Likert scale from 1 (completely disagree) to 7 (completely agree), with higher scores indicating higher usage of a strategy. The ERS has been proved to be valid and reliable in Chinese cultural context (Wang et al., 2022). In this study, the Cronbach’s α coefficient of the ERS, CR, ES are 0.85, 0.87 and 0.80, respectively. By the confirmatory factor analysis, all the indices fulfilled the criteria: χ2 /df = 4.90, RMSEA = 0.08, SRMR = 0.08, CFI = 0.92, NFI = 0.90, TLI = 0.88.
2.2.3 Connor-Davidson resilience scale (CD-RISC)
The CD-RISC (Connor and Davidson, 2003) was used to measure the psychological resilience of preschool teachers. This scale consists of 25 items. For example, “Able to adapt to adapt to change,” “Coping with stress can strengthen me,” or “Tries to see humorous side of problems.” All items rated on a 5-point Likert scale, from 1 (never completely disagree) to 5 (always), with higher scores indicating greater resilience. The Chinese version showed good internal consistency and concurrent validity (Tang et al., 2025). In the current study, Cronbach’s coefficient of this scale was 0.94. The confirmatory factor analysis indicates a good fit (χ2 /df = 3.01, RMSEA = 0.06, SRMR = 0.05, CFI = 0.92, NFI = 0.89, TLI = 0.91).
2.2.4 Student-teacher relationships scale (STRS)
The STRS originated from Pianta (2001) measures a teacher’s perception of their relationship with children. It consisted of 28 items rated on a 5-point rating scale from 1 (definitely does not apply) to 5 (definitely applies). The STRS is scored by summing groups of items corresponding to 3 factor-based subscales: closeness (11 items, e.g., “I share an affectionate, warm relationship with this child”), conflict (12 items, e.g., “This child easily becomes angry at me”) and dependency (α = 0.85, 5 items, e.g., “This child is overly dependent on me”). The Chinese version has both strong reliability and validity (Bai et al., 2022). In this study, the Cronbach’s α coefficient of the subscales was 0.78 (closeness), 0.86 (conflict) and 0.85 (dependency), respectively. The α of the STRS was 0.82. There is also a good acceptable model fit for the STRS three-factor structure: χ2 /df = 2.0, RMSEA = 0.05, SRMR = 0.07, CFI = 0.91, NFI = 0.83, TLI = 0.90.
2.3 Data processing and statistical analysis
SPSS 26.0 and Amos 23.0 were used for statistical analyses. First, the Harman single factor test (Podsakoff et al., 2003) was conducted to test Common Method Bias. Results showed the 22 factors in this study with eigenvalues greater than 1. And the maximum factor variation explanation rate was 14.92%, which means there was not a great Common Method Bias problem in this study. Then, descriptive statistics analyses were conducted to examine the relationship among CAN, resilience, teacher-child relationships and emotion regulation. Finally, we used Amos 23.0 to explore the hypothesized structural equation model (SEM) of the chain mediating effect.
3 Results
3.1 Correlation analysis among main variables
As shown in Table 2, CAN significantly positively correlated with ES (r = 0.17, p < 0.01), conflict (r = 0.40, p < 0.01) and negatively correlated with CR (r = −0.29, p < 0.01), resilience (r = −0.33, p < 0.01), closeness (r = −0.38, p < 0.01), respectively. CR was positively correlated with resilience (r = 0.28, p < 0.01), closeness (r = 0.36, p < 0.01) and dependency (r = 0.16, p < 0.01), respectively. There was no significant correlation between ES and resilience (r = 0.03, p > 0.05), ES and dependency (r = 0.05, p < 0.05), respectively. ES positively related to CR (r = 0.35, p < 0.01) and conflict (r = 0.24, p < 0.01), but negatively associated with closeness (r = −0.11, p < 0.01), respectively. Resilience could positively correlate with closeness (r = 0.36, p < 0.01), dependency (r = 0.16, p < 0.01), but negatively relate to conflict (r = −0.18, p < 0.01).
Table 2. Means, standard deviations, and Pearson correlations among main variables.
3.2 Chain mediation effect of resilience and student-teacher relationships
First, a SEM was built to verify the hypotheses through Amos 23.0. This model showed a good fit to the empirical data. All the indices fulfilled the criteria: χ2/df = 3.22, RMSEA = 0.07, SRMR = 0.07, CFI = 0.92, NFI = 0.88, TLI = 0.88.
Then, Cognitive Reappraisal and Expressive Suppression in emotion regulation process were modeled as the dependent variables, CAN served as the independent variable, resilience and STR served as the mediating variables, socio-demographic variables (e.g., age, educational level, teaching experience, monthly income) were controlled as covariates. In Figure 2, CAN could negatively predict resilience (β = −0.42, p < 0.001), STR (β = −0.35, p < 0.001) and CR (β = −0.27, p < 0.001); but positively influence ES (β = 0.23, p < 0.001), respectively, supporting H1 (H1a/H1b). Resilience is a significant positive predictor of STR (β = 0.18, p < 0.001), CR (β = 0.13, p < 0.01) and ES (β = 0.10, p < 0.05), supporting H3a. STR significantly positively influences CR (β = 0.10, p < 0.05). However, the effect of STR on ES is −0.04 (p > 0.05). The results partly support H3b.
Figure 2. The structural equation model for the chain mediation. N = 528. ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.
Furthermore, the indirect effects of CAN on CR, ES through the mediating role of resilience are −0.06 [p < 0.05, 95% CI (−0.12, −0.004)] and −0.04 [p < 0.05, 95% CI (−0.10, −0.001)], which supports H2. The indirect effects of CAN on CR, ES through the mediating role of STR are −0.04 [p < 0.05, 95% CI (−0.21, −0.02)] and 0.003 [p > 0.05, 95% CI (−0.03, 0.26)], which support H4a. That is, STR plays a mediating effect on the relationship between CAN and CR.
A chain mediating effect in the process of CR influenced by CAN is also significant [β = −0.10, SE = 0.06, 95% CI (−0.37, −0.03)]. But we cannot construct a chain mediation model in the process of ES influenced by CAN [β = −0.03, SE = 0.09, 95% CI (−0.13, 0.18)], which means CAN could not indirectly influence ES through the chain mediating effect from resilience to STR. These results indicate that H5a is supported (see Table 3).
Table 3. Standardized indirect effects and 95% confidence intervals.
4 Discussion
4.1 Childhood abuse and neglect and emotion regulation
As expected, preschool teachers who have experienced severe childhood abuse and neglect use varying strategies for emotion regulation, such as less CR, preferring ES strategies. This finding supported the first Hypotheses and confirmed previous literature that ES was associated with higher, and CR with lower self-reported, persistent trauma symptoms (Hoffman et al., 2022; Moore et al., 2008). Policies should strengthen and supervise preschools to take necessary measures to reduce negative effects of childhood abuse and neglect from preschool teachers, such as improving traditional Chinese educational views, establishing a safe and harmonious environment, strengthening staff training to improve professional and ethical standards, strengthening the promotion of relevant laws within society, establishing an effective communication mechanism with people around. For example, researchers and educators could implement mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) programs specifically for those with a history of abuse and neglect. Or provide training in “in-the-moment” emotion regulation techniques to use during stressful classroom interactions. Also, cognitive-behavioral treatment could be used to broaden emotion regulation skills, decrease expressive suppression and increase cognitive reappraisal (Knowles and Tolin, 2024).
4.2 Resilience and student-teacher relationships as mediators
The current study proved Hypothesis 2 (H2a/H2b), that resilience mediated the relationship between preschool teachers who experienced childhood abuse and their emotion regulation strategies. Consistent with prior research (e.g., Fares-Otero et al., 2023; Masten, 2001), childhood experiences of abuse and neglect were negatively related with Chinese preschool teachers’ resilience. In fact, more or more intense experiences of teachers’ childhood abuse were able to predict preschool teachers’ lower levels of resilience. Meanwhile, the stronger the psychological resilience of preschool teachers, the more CR strategies they used to regulate emotions. In other words, people who have survived childhood abuse and neglect may hold distrust towards others leading to negative cognition expression through lower levels of resilience.
Moreover, STR could mediate the relationship between childhood abuse and neglect and CR (H4a is supported). The findings consisted with previous work (Wang and Chen, 2023) and extend the Attachment Theory (Fonagy et al., 2023), adult survivors of childhood trauma tend to possess an insecure attachment style resulting in difficulty relating to others and regulating emotions. On one hand, preschool teachers who experienced traumatic events in their own childhoods have a more difficult time establishing strong, healthy student-teacher relationships. On the other hand, high quality teacher-child interactions may provide preschool teachers the positive social support needed for CR. Thümmler et al. (2022) demonstrated that STR are based on teachers’ knowledge and skills; thus, professionally designed or trained interactions are essential.
Further, this study also supports Hypothesis H5a, which indicates that resilience and STR perform a chain mediating effect in the relationship between CAN and CR strategies, transmitting the influence of childhood abuse and neglect to CR. Similar with previous literature (e.g., Day, 2008; De Nobile et al., 2021; Kumari, 2020; Wood et al., 2019), this path of lower resilience caused by traumatic experiences in preschool teachers’ childhoods decreases CR through weaker teacher-child relationships.
In addition, positive social interactions provided by one’s psychological needs played a mediator role in conflicts with recognizing, accepting and emotion expressions (Talty et al., 2023). If women who experience abuse have learned safety strategies for contending with mild interpersonal challenges in their current or previous relationships (e.g., by turning to others who reaffirm her self-esteem, student-teacher interactions), they might be able to manage or regulate negative emotions (Wood et al., 2019). That is, the secure STR provides the consistent, safe context necessary for the development of sophisticated emotion regulation skills. Therefore, preschools and educational agencies should focus on many practical interventions for strengthening preschool teachers’ resilience, and student-teacher relationships. For example, early childhood educators could train preschool teachers to solve problems with the child, cultivating cognition flexibility and skills for cognitive reappraisal strategies with the safety of the STR.
Finally, whether and how does childhood abuse and neglect influences ES? The SEM results showed Chinese preschool teachers’ abuse and neglect in childhood directly and positively influence ES, which is consistent with prior literature (Hoffman et al., 2022). However, childhood abuse and neglect could not indirectly and sequentially influence ES through resilience and student-teacher relationships in Chinese cultural context (H4b and H5b are not supported). Specifically, ES is generally considered a maladaptive or defensive regulation strategy that is less influenced by positive psychological resources such as resilience or supportive student-teacher relationships. Based on Gross’s Process Model of Emotion Regulation (2015), suppression occurs after emotion activation, reflecting behavioral control rather than cognitive reframing. Therefore, unlike cognitive reappraisal that could be strengthened through resilience and secure attachment, suppression is less amenable to change through psychological or relational resources. Another evidence from Moore et al. (2008), CR seems to provide more effective coping strategies, one might expect that individuals who cognitively reappraise frequently would have less need for expressive suppression, a less effective strategy. Moreover, in collectivist contexts like China, moderate suppression may even function as a socially acceptable norm rather than a purely negative outcome, which could further weaken its mediating linkage. While teachers with higher resilience and better relationships tend to use more adaptive strategies (reappraisal), these protective factors do not significantly reduce their reliance on suppression, since emotional suppression strategy may serve pragmatic or cultural self-regulation purposes. Taken together, the potential mediating mechanism between childhood abuse and neglect and ES also needs further exploration.
4.3 Limitations and future directions
Several limitations in this research should be noted. First, due to the special nature of the preschool teacher occupation, the sample focuses on females. Future research should expand the sample size and gender diversity, thereby increasing the generalization of results. Second, the data is collected from self-reported questionnaires, distributed online. In the future, multiple research methods, including interview, observation, and experimental methods, could be used to avoid social permission biases. Third, emotion regulation could have cultural differences (Zhang et al., 2020), thus, future exploration of cross-cultural tests should be highlighted. Last, although the current study revealed the positive association between teachers’ childhood abuse and neglect and ES, the potential mediating mechanism between them needs further exploration.
5 Conclusion
To conclude, this study sheds valuable light on the significance of addressing Chinese preschool teachers who have experienced childhood abuse and neglect influences on emotion regulation (CR and ES). The current study strengthens the necessity of fostering stronger psychological resilience and in implementing clear, achievable strategies that boost high quality student-teacher relationships, in the face of adults’ childhood traumas. Preschool teaching in China is a stressful profession day in and day out for all teachers, even for those without trauma-filled childhoods (Zhang et al., 2020). Perhaps, a crucial next step is to extend the research to focus on needed interventions that target developing preschool teachers’ coping strategies that boost resilience and that increase awareness of the importance of establishing strong student-teacher relationships. Specifically, policy makers could provide institutional teacher counseling services (e.g., “Compassionate Schools,” Parker et al., 2019), which involves the training of educators in trauma-informed and trauma-sensitive practices, in the hopes of creating scholastic environments more conducive to widespread resilience, promoting preschool teachers’ emotional health and professional well-being.
Data availability statement
The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.
Ethics statement
The studies involving humans were approved by Nanjing Xiao zhuang University. The studies were conducted in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements. The participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study. Written informed consent was obtained from the individual(s) for the publication of any potentially identifiable images or data included in this article.
Author contributions
YT: Funding acquisition, Project administration, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. ZG: Data curation, Investigation, Funding acquisition, Writing – review & editing. JZ: Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Software, Validation, Writing – review & editing.
Funding
The author(s) declared that financial support was received for this work and/or its publication. The research was supported by a grant from the National Social Science Fund Youth Project (25CSH078), the Jiangsu Social Science Fund Youth Project (25JYC006), and Nanjing Municipal Educational Science “14th Five-Year Plan” Project (L/2024/096). The funders had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, preparation of the manuscript, or decision to publish or not publish.
Conflict of interest
The author(s) declared that this work was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Correction note
A correction has been made to this article. Details can be found at: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1775161.
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Keywords: childhood abuse and neglect, expression suppression, cognitive reappraisal, resilience, student-teacher relationships
Citation: Tang Y, Gan Z and Zhu J (2025) Exploring Chinese preschool teachers with a history of childhood abuse and neglect: impacts on emotion regulation and the role of resilience and student—teacher relationships. Front. Educ. 10:1711325. doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1711325
Edited by:
Ying Zhang, Purdue University, United StatesReviewed by:
Seyyedeh Fatemeh Mousavi, Alzahra University, IranShengkai Ji, Jiaxing University, China
Copyright © 2025 Tang, Gan and Zhu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Zilu Gan, amdzdGFuZDEzQGdtYWlsLmNvbQ==
†These authors share first authorship