Parent-child communication and educational anxiety: a longitudinal analysis based on the common fate model

Abstract

Background In the face of family stress and emerging family problems, the transactional model of stress and coping provides new perspectives for solving stress problems in the family. This study integrates it with the common fate model to reveal new paths for coping with educational anxiety problems from the level of parent-child dichotomous interaction in the family environment, aiming to provide some theoretical and practical support for alleviating parents’ education anxiety. Methods This study used a combination of interviews and questionnaires to stratify students and their parents from a public junior high school in Jinan City to participate in the study. Data were collected in two time periods (T1, T2; one year apart), and the demographic characteristics of parents and children, parent-child communication quality, education anxiety, and parent-child trust relationship of 495 families were finally analysed by SPSS 27.0. Results The results found that (1) based on the Common Fate Model, quality of parent-child communication negatively predicted parents’ education anxiety; (2) quality of parent-child communication positively predicted parent-child trust relationship; (3) parent-child trust relationship negatively predicted parents’education anxiety; (4) parent-child trust relationship mediated quality of parent-child communication and education anxiety. Conclusions This study sheds light on research related to stress coping and anxiety relief in the family environment, and provides theoretical and practical support for understanding the interaction between parents and children at the family level, and coping with stressful events together. It implies that future researchers should not only focus on one aspect when coping with and dealing with family problems, but should analyse the family as a whole, including the communication status and parent-child relationship between parents and children.