Abstract
Objectives
The roles of parental mindfulness and coparenting relationships in Eastern cultures have been relatively understudied. This study aimed to investigate the associations of parental mindfulness, emotion regulation, parenting quality, and coparenting quality with children’s emotion regulation and negativity in Chinese families.
Methods
Data for a subsample of 2156 parents were drawn from a study with 2237 Chinese parents of school-age children aged 6 to 12 years. Parents completed the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire, the Difficulties in Emotional Regulation Scale, the Multidimensional Assessment of Parenting Scale, the Brief Coparenting Relationship Scale, and the Emotion Regulation Checklist.
Results
Fewer parental emotional regulation difficulties and higher levels of dispositional mindfulness were linked to better parenting quality, which was, in turn, associated with better emotion regulation and lower negativity among children. The association between parenting quality and child negativity was stronger when coparenting quality was higher.
Conclusions
This study highlights the roles of parental mindfulness and emotion regulation skills in children’s emotional development in Chinese culture through their associations with parenting practices.
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Funding
This research was supported by the 2019 Comprehensive Discipline Construction Fund of Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University, and the Funding of International Center for Educational Research, ICER, Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University.
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JY developed the study concept, analyzed the data, and wrote the paper. SJSS and QW collaborated in the writing and editing of the paper. RH designed and executed the study, assisted with the data analysis, and collaborated in the writing and editing of the paper.
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This research involved human participants. The procedures were approved by the Institutional Review Board of Beijing Normal University. Informed consent was provided by all participants.
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Yan, J.J., Schoppe-Sullivan, S., Wu, Q. et al. Associations from Parental Mindfulness and Emotion Regulation to Child Emotion Regulation Through Parenting: the Moderating Role of Coparenting in Chinese families. Mindfulness 12, 1513–1523 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-021-01619-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-021-01619-3