Linking academic worries and youth academic adjustment: The role of parental involvement

Abstract

Using a multi-informant, longitudinal design, we investigated the independent and interactive associations between youth academic worries and parental involvement (parent-teacher relationship quality, academic socialization, schoolwork assistance) before the middle school transition as predictors of youth engagement and academic performance after the middle school transition among 100 youth (53% boys; Mage = 11.05 years; 57% White). We found that maternal academic socialization moderated the prospective association between youth academic worries and academic adjustment, such that youth who experienced more academic worries coupled with higher maternal academic socialization had higher academic performance and engagement; no association emerged for lower maternal academic socialization. Further, maternal schoolwork assistance before middle school directly predicted better academic performance during middle school. Findings highlight the importance of maternal schoolwork assistance in promoting youths' academic performance, as well as maternal academic socialization in promoting higher academic performance and engagement for youth experiencing more academic worries.