Abstract
This study investigated the mediating role of parenting self-efficacy in the relationship between Chinese parents’ depressive symptoms and their young children’s social and emotional competence and tested whether the mediating relationship differed for fathers and mothers. Parents (N = 250) of children aged 3-to-8 years old in the eastern coastal region of China completed a cross-sectional survey. Questionnaires assessed parental depressive symptoms, parenting self-efficacy, and children’s social and emotional competence. Research questions were tested using mediation and moderated mediation within a multiple regression framework. Results supported a significant indirect effect of parental depressive symptoms on young children’s social and emotional competence through parenting self-efficacy, indicating that parenting self-efficacy served as a mediator. The mediational process did not differ for mothers and fathers. Parenting self-efficacy appears to be a mechanism in explaining the influence of parental depression on young children’s social and emotional development in a Chinese sample. Findings suggest that interventions with depressed parents should seek to improve parenting self-efficacy to support young children’s healthy development in the context of parental depression.
Highlights
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Depression in Chinese parents is related to lower parenting self-efficacy.
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Depression affects child social–emotional competence via parent self-efficacy.
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Parenting self-efficacy served as a mediator for both mothers and fathers.
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References
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Yang, Z., Williams, N.A. Parenting Self-Efficacy Mediates the Association between Chinese Parents’ Depression Symptoms and their Young Children’s Social and Emotional Competence. J Child Fam Stud 30, 1261–1274 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-021-01930-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-021-01930-6