Parental Psychological Flexibility and Children’s Behavior Problems in Rural Areas in Northeast China: The Mediation of Children’s Emotion Regulation

Abstract

Children’s behavior problems are not conducive to their sustainable development. Therefore, it is of great value to explore the mechanism of relevant influencing factors on the behavior problems of rural preschoolers. This study aimed to reveal the direct effect of parental psychological flexibility on children’s behavior problems and the mediating effect of children’s emotion regulation. Based on simple random sampling, 355 caregivers (male = 31.25 years, SD = 9.78; 74.08% females; 9.01% bachelor degree) were recruited from eight rural kindergartens in three provinces in northeast China. With questionnaires, caregivers reported their parental psychological flexibility and assessed their children’s emotion regulation and behavior problems. SPSS 25.0 software was used for statistical data analysis. The results support our hypotheses, suggesting that parental psychological flexibility, emotional stability, and emotional regulation negatively predicted children’s externalizing and internalizing behavior problems. Meanwhile, emotional stability and regulation partially mediated the relationship between parental psychological flexibility and children’s externalizing and internalizing behavior problems. These findings provide a new perspective for preventing and intervening in preschoolers’ behavior problems.

Influences of Impulsivity and Psychological Flexibility on Empathic Abilities: A Quantitative Analysis

“…Its role in moderating the effects of distress-driven impulsivity and problematic behaviors (Liu et al, 2022) supports our findings on the predictive value of psychological flexibility for empathy. Additionally, Faulkner et al (2021) and Ren et al (2022) demonstrate how psychological flexibility can impact health outcomes and child development, respectively, through mechanisms such as emotion regulation (Faulkner et al, 2021;Ren et al, 2022). This study's findings, situated within the broader research landscape, underscore the importance of considering the dynamic interplay between empathy, impulsivity, and psychological flexibility.…”

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The relationship between home-school cooperation and parenting self-efficacy : the Mediating Role of parental psychological flexibility and the Moderating Role of work-family conflict

“…On the other hand, multiple studies have found that parents' parenting psychological exibility has a signi cant positive impact on children's behavioral problems and psychological development. A study involving parents of rural Chinese preschoolers found that parents' psychological exibility negatively predicts their children's internalizing and externalizing problems 30 . Low levels of parenting psychological exibility increase the risk of emotional, behavioral, and peer problems in children, while high parenting psychological exibility reduces the frequency of children's problem behaviors 31 .…”

Dificultades de regulación emocional y motivos de afrontamiento y mejora: Factores predictores relacionados con el uso de alcohol en estudiantes de sexto de secundaria

“…Gross y Thompson (2007) definen la regulación emocional como aquellos procesos por los que las personas ejercen influencia sobre su estado emocional, que involucra un intento de regular desde qué emociones tener, cuándo sentirlas, cómo experimentarlas y hasta cómo expresarlas. Algunas conceptualizaciones sobre la regulación emocional (o la desregulación) ponen el acento en el control sobre la experiencia subjetiva y la expresión emocional (Ren et al, 2022), mientras que otras enfatizan en la función de las emociones y señalan que regulación y control no son conceptos intercambiables (Cole et al, 1994). Adicionalmente, otros autores han destacado las estrategias utilizadas para regular las emociones, considerando algunas de estas adaptativas y otras desadaptativas (Boemo et al, 2022).…”