Structural Relationships Between Maternal Parenting Stress, Marital Conflict, Maternal Parenting Behavior, and School-Aged Children’s Emotion Regulation

Abstract

Objectives: There is an increasing awareness of the importance of maternal parenting stress on children’s development. Therefore, this study examined the direct effect of maternal parenting stress on children’s emotion regulation and its indirect effect via marital conflict and parenting behavior.Methods: Data were collected from 201 early school-aged children’s (age 7~8) mothers. Data were analyzed by Pearson’s correlation coefficients and structural equation modeling using SPSS 21.0 and AMOS 22.0.Results: First, maternal parenting stress did not significantly affect emotion regulation. Second, parenting stress did not significantly affect emotion regulation through marital conflict. Third, parenting stress significantly affected emotion regulation through parenting behavior. Lastly, parenting stress had an indirect effect on emotion regulation through marital conflict and parenting behavior.Conclusion: Specific pathways were identified through which maternal parenting stress can affect school-aged children's emotion regulation via marital conflict and parenting behavior. This study highlights the importance of mothers’ warm and reasonable parenting behavior that mediates the relationship between maternal parenting stress and children’s emotion regulation. Although marital conflict’s direct association with emotion regulation was not significant, its role in developing children’s emotion regulation is highlighted, as marital conflict and parenting behavior are significant sequential mediators between parenting stress and emotion regulation.