The Mediating Role of Parental Emotional Regulation in the Relationship between Parenting Stress and Parent–Child Attachment

Abstract

Parenting stress is one of the key factors that impact the quality of parent–child relationships and negatively impact on the emotional and psychological development of children. It is thought that emotional regulation is a key parental competence and is important to lessen the impact of parenting stress on attachment outcomes. This study was designed to investigate the mediation effect of the parental emotional regulation between parenting stress and parent–child attachment. A total of 250 parents of children aged 3-12 years were sampled for the cross sectional correlational research over a 4 month period. The Parents Stress Index-Short Form (PSI-SF), Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ), and Parent–Child Attachment Scale (PCAS) were used to collect data. SPSS was used to conduct descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation, multiple regression and mediation analysis. Results showed that parenting stress significantly associated with poorer parent–child attachment, while better parenting emotional regulation is significantly associated with better parent–child attachment. Mediation analysis indicated that the relationship between parenting stress and parent–child attachment was partially mediated by parental emotional regulation, suggesting that parents who had higher emotional regulation skills had less negative association between parenting stress and parent–child attachment. The results of this study highlight the need for interventions that aim to improve parental emotional regulation processes in order to build a more positive parent–child relationship and to mitigate the negative effects of parenting stress.