The Relationship between Parenting Styles and Preschool Children's Behavior: The Mediating Role of Preschool Children's Social-Emotional Competence

Yan Wang; Zhenkai Du; Yifan Zhao

doi:10.70088/5j07jp77

Authors

Yan Wang Xizang University, Lhasa, China Author
Zhenkai Du Xizang University, Lhasa, China Author
Yifan Zhao Xizang University, Lhasa, China Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.70088/5j07jp77

Keywords:

parenting styles, child behavior, early childhood, mediating effect

Abstract

Parenting attitudes and specific parenting behaviors play a subtle yet fundamentally guiding role in the comprehensive development of young children's emotional competence and subsequent behavioral patterns. To systematically explore the influence of various parenting styles on preschool children's behavior, as well as to elucidate the underlying psychological mechanisms, this empirical study administered the Parental Rearing Style Scale, the Social-Emotional Assessment for Preschool Children, and the Child Behavior Questionnaire. The participants comprised parents of children recruited from the junior, intermediate, and senior kindergarten classes across two representative kindergartens. Following rigorous data screening, a total of 490 valid questionnaires were obtained for quantitative analysis. The statistical results demonstrated that parenting styles, preschool children's social-emotional competence, and their observable behaviors were significantly and intricately correlated with one another. Specifically, an authoritative parenting style indirectly promoted children's positive prosocial behavior by significantly enhancing their foundational social-emotional competence. In contrast, an authoritarian parenting style not only directly precipitated a higher incidence of problem behaviors in children but also partially influenced their behavior indirectly by undermining their social-emotional competence, thereby yielding an overall negative developmental effect. Furthermore, the study conclusively found that the stronger the social-emotional competence exhibited by preschool children in this region, the fewer behavioral problems they displayed, highlighting the critical mediating role of emotional regulation in early childhood development.

References

U. Bronfenbrenner, The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979.

E. T. Gershoff, "Corporal punishment by parents and associated child behaviors and experiences: a meta-analytic and theoretical review," Psychological Bulletin, vol. 128, no. 4, pp. 539, 2002.

D.-D. Tang and Z.-L. Yun, "Statistical approaches for testing common method bias: Problems and suggestions," Journal of Psychological Science, vol. 43, no. 1, pp. 215-223, 2020.

K. K. H. Chung, C. B. Lam, and J. Liew, "Studying children’s social-emotional development in school and at home through a cultural lens," Early Education and Development, vol. 31, no. 6, pp. 927-929, 2020.

S. P. Putnam and M. K. Rothbart, "Development of short and very short forms of the Children's Behavior Questionnaire," Journal of Personality Assessment, vol. 87, no. 1, pp. 102-112, 2006.

S. A. Denham, "Social-emotional competence as support for school readiness: What is it and how do we assess it?," Early Education and Development, vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 57-89, 2006.

R. L. Akers and W. G. Jennings, "Social learning theory," in The Handbook of Criminological Theory, 1st ed., pp. 230-240, 2015.

J. Cui, E. J. Mistur, C. Wei, J. E. Lansford, D. L. Putnick, and M. H. Bornstein, "Multilevel factors affecting early socioemotional development in humans," Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, vol. 72, no. 10, pp. 172, 2018.

J. Xu et al., "Parental autonomy support and psychological control and children's biobehavioral functioning: Historical cohort differences in urban China," Child Development, vol. 95, no. 6, pp. 2166-2177, 2024.

R. K. Chao, "Beyond parental control and authoritarian parenting style: Understanding Chinese parenting through the cultural notion of training," Child Development, vol. 65, no. 4, pp. 1111-1119, 1994.

M. C. K. Mak, L. Yin, M. Li, R. Y. H. Cheung, and P. T. Oon, "The relation between parenting stress and child behavior problems: Negative parenting styles as mediator," Journal of Child and Family Studies, vol. 29, no. 11, pp. 2993-3003, 2020.

S. Kuppens and E. Ceulemans, "Parenting styles: A closer look at a well-known concept," Journal of Child and Family Studies, vol. 28, no. 1, pp. 168-181, 2019.

A. K. Tsoi, S. Wilson, and S. Thikkurissy, "A study of the relationship of parenting styles, child temperament, and operatory behavior in healthy children," Journal of Clinical Pediatric Dentistry, vol. 42, no. 4, pp. 273-278, 2018.

S. Sarwar, "Influence of parenting style on children's behaviour," Journal of Education and Educational Development, vol. 3, no. 2, 2016.

K. Aunola and J. E. Nurmi, "The role of parenting styles in children's problem behavior," Child Development, vol. 76, no. 6, pp. 1144-1159, 2005.

A. M. Sumargi, E. Prasetyo, and B. W. Ardelia, "Parenting styles and their impacts on child problem behaviors," Jurnal Psikologi, vol. 19, no. 3, pp. 269-284, 2020.

S. Alizadeh, M. B. A. Talib, R. Abdullah, and M. Mansor, "Relationship between parenting style and children’s behavior problems," Asian Social Science, vol. 7, no. 12, pp. 195-200, 2011.

J. Howenstein, A. Kumar, P. S. Casamassimo, D. McTigue, D. Coury, and H. Yin, "Correlating parenting styles with child behavior and caries," Pediatric Dentistry, vol. 37, no. 1, pp. 59-64, 2015.