Abstract
Parental burnout is overwhelming exhaustion associated with one’s parental role. Numerous studies have explored the antecedents of parental burnout, with a deficient focus on its consequences, especially for children’s development. This study investigated the interaction effect between two protective factors (i.e., co-parenting and parental psychological flexibility) of parental burnout on subsequent children’s mental health through the mediation effect of parental burnout. A total of 262 Chinese mothers (Mage = 35 years old) raising preschoolers participated in a two-wave survey within 1-month interval. Path analysis confirmed the moderated median model. Specifically, parental psychological flexibility (PPF) moderated the mediating effect of parental burnout between co-parenting and children’s internalizing and externalizing problems reported by mothers. For mothers with middle or low PPF, high-quality co-parenting was related to low children’s externalizing and internalizing problems via low-level parental burnout. While mothers with high PPF were less likely to develop parental burnout and exert a negative impact on children’s externalizing and internalizing problems even in face of low-quality co-parenting. Co-parenting and PPF may compensate for each other as the protective factors of parental burnout in mothers and children’s internalizing and externalizing problems in China.
Highlights
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Parental burnout mediates the link between co-parenting and children’s internalizing and externalizing problems.
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The mediating effect mentioned above is significant for mothers with middle or low level of parental psychological flexibility.
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Strategies to promote fathers’ cooperation in parenting and maternal PPF are both needed in reliving maternal parental burnout and children’s problems in China.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China 32271136 to Guangyu Zhou, and Lanyuan Grant of Peking University 4801000057 to Guangyu Zhou.
Author Contributions
All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation and data collection were performed by Xingyao Han and Dandan Li. Data analysis were performed by Jing Cao. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Jing Cao and Mengke Gou, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Cao, J., Gou, M., Han, X. et al. Co-parenting, Parental Burnout, Child Internalizing and Externalizing Problems: Moderation by Parental Psychological Flexibility. J Child Fam Stud (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-024-02828-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-024-02828-9