Parent psychological well-being, home learning environment, and child development among Kenyan families

Abstract

While child poverty is declining globally, many children in Sub-Saharan Africa still live in poverty and face obstacles that hinder them from achieving their full developmental potential. Parents' psychological well-being has important influences on child development directly or indirectly through the home learning environment (HLE). Still, there is a lack of research on this topic from Sub-Saharan Africa. To fill this gap, the present study examined associations among parents' psychological well-being, HLE, and children's socioemotional and cognitive development, using a large sample of 1633 parents (73 % mothers, 88 % married; 38 % completed some secondary school) and their children (M age = 7.7 years) from Kenya. There were unique processes between different aspects of parents' psychological well-being and child development: Parent depressive symptoms were directly associated with child development, whereas parent self-efficacy was directly and indirectly associated through HLE. The findings provide implications for developing family-focused preventive interventions in Sub-Saharan Africa.