Background Teen dating violence (TDV) is a common phenomenon of great public concern. TDV may lead to severe long‐term consequences for victims and offenders, and even more so for females than for males. Aim The aim of this paper is to investigate possible underlying factors for involvement in TDV either as a perpetrator or a victim. Social learning theory is commonly used to explain internalisation of parents' behaviour on children's behavioural expressions, but less so on parents' emotion regulation as a direct link to later TDV. Method We used longitudinal data from the Pittsburgh Girls Study (N = 2450) to investigate if and how parents' positive and negative emotion regulation is related to TDV, controlling for early aggression and race. Results Results show a moderately strong association between parents' negative emotion regulation and their daughters' involvement in serious dating violence. We also found that many more African American girls were involved in TDV compared to Caucasian girls, both as a perpetrator and victim. Conclusions and practical implications We discuss directions for future research focusing on emotion regulation and dating violence. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.