Abstract
Background: Overparenting is an emerging parenting style in which parents over-protect their children from difficulties and challenges by intruding into their lives and providing extensive assistance to them. Unfortunately, longitudinal studies related to overparenting were severely lacking, particularly on its impacts on early adolescents. Moreover, studies examining the mediational pathways through which overparenting is associated with adolescent anxiety are scant. This study examined the mediating role of parent-child conflict (father-child and mother-child) in the relationship between overparenting (paternal and maternal) and adolescent anxiety over time. Method: Based on a three-wave longitudinal data of 1074 Chinese early adolescents in Hong Kong, the relationships among paternal and maternal overparenting, father- and mother-child conflict, and adolescent anxiety were assessed. Results: Mother-child conflict mediated the relationship between maternal overparenting and adolescent anxiety over time. Besides, a reverse association of prior adolescent anxiety with subsequent maternal overparenting via mother-child conflict was also identified. In addition, adolescent gender and family intactness did not moderate the relationships among overparenting, parent-child conflict, and adolescent anxiety. Discussion: This present study identified that the bidirectional relationship between maternal overparenting and adolescent anxiety via mother-child conflict over time, which sheds new light on the study of overparenting on adolescent well-being in the Chinese communities.
Highlights
In the past decade, overparenting has caught the attention of researchers, educators, and family theorists in understanding the relationship between overparenting and development and wellbeing among emerging adults [1,2,3,4]
Correlational analyses showed that perceived paternal overparenting at Time 1 (T1) was positively related to father-child conflict concurrently and longitudinally, but it was only related to anxiety at T1
Adolescent anxiety at T1 was positively related to maternal overparenting, father-child conflict, and mother-child conflict concurrently and longitudinally, and it was associated with paternal overparenting at T1
Summary
In the past decade, overparenting has caught the attention of researchers, educators, and family theorists in understanding the relationship between overparenting and development and wellbeing among emerging adults [1,2,3,4]. Overparenting is a developmentally inappropriate parenting style where parents overprotect their children by involving too much in their daily lives and providing tremendous care and attention to them [4]. A vast majority of studies adopted a cross-sectional approach in research design e.g., [4,12], which fails to examine the associations of overparenting with adolescent development and wellbeing over time. Overparenting is an emerging parenting style in which parents over-protect their children from difficulties and challenges by intruding into their lives and providing extensive assistance to them. Studies examining the mediational pathways through which overparenting is associated with adolescent anxiety are scant. This study examined the mediating role of parent-child conflict (father-child and mother-child) in the relationship between overparenting (paternal and maternal) and adolescent anxiety over time
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