{"title":"The effect of parental psychological flexibility on children's behavioral problems: a moderated mediation model.","authors":"Jia Wang, Ru-De Liu, Jingmin Lin","doi":"10.1186/s13034-025-00863-y","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Building upon previous research suggesting that parental psychological flexibility is negatively associate with children's behavioral problems, this study examined a moderated mediation model to explore the effect of parental psychological flexibility on children's internalizing and externalizing problems. Specifically, parent-child conflict is considered as a mediator while parental phubbing is examined as a moderator.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>This study employed a cross-sectional design, with a total of 1060 parents of preschool-aged children participating. The parents completed a series of surveys, including the Parental Psychological Flexibility Questionnaire, the short form of the Child-Parent Relationship Scale, the Parental Phubbing Scale, and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire regarding their children. The moderated mediation model was assessed using SPSS PROCESS 4.1.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>The results indicated that parental psychological flexibility negatively predicted children's behavioral problems through the mediating effect of parent-child conflict, with this relationship being moderated by parental phubbing; an increase in phubbing weakened the negative correlation between parental psychological flexibility and parent-child conflict, thereby further weakened the negative correlation between parental psychological flexibility and children's behavioral problems.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>These findings offer potential strategies for parents to mitigate the risk of their children developing internalizing or externalizing problems, by enhancing parental psychological flexibility and reducing instances of phubbing behavior.</p>","PeriodicalId":9934,"journal":{"name":"Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health","volume":"19 1","pages":"8"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4000,"publicationDate":"2025-02-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11827158/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s13034-025-00863-y","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"PEDIATRICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Background: Building upon previous research suggesting that parental psychological flexibility is negatively associate with children's behavioral problems, this study examined a moderated mediation model to explore the effect of parental psychological flexibility on children's internalizing and externalizing problems. Specifically, parent-child conflict is considered as a mediator while parental phubbing is examined as a moderator.
Methods: This study employed a cross-sectional design, with a total of 1060 parents of preschool-aged children participating. The parents completed a series of surveys, including the Parental Psychological Flexibility Questionnaire, the short form of the Child-Parent Relationship Scale, the Parental Phubbing Scale, and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire regarding their children. The moderated mediation model was assessed using SPSS PROCESS 4.1.
Results: The results indicated that parental psychological flexibility negatively predicted children's behavioral problems through the mediating effect of parent-child conflict, with this relationship being moderated by parental phubbing; an increase in phubbing weakened the negative correlation between parental psychological flexibility and parent-child conflict, thereby further weakened the negative correlation between parental psychological flexibility and children's behavioral problems.
Conclusion: These findings offer potential strategies for parents to mitigate the risk of their children developing internalizing or externalizing problems, by enhancing parental psychological flexibility and reducing instances of phubbing behavior.
期刊介绍:
Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health, the official journal of the International Association for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions, is an open access, online journal that provides an international platform for rapid and comprehensive scientific communication on child and adolescent mental health across different cultural backgrounds. CAPMH serves as a scientifically rigorous and broadly open forum for both interdisciplinary and cross-cultural exchange of research information, involving psychiatrists, paediatricians, psychologists, neuroscientists, and allied disciplines. The journal focusses on improving the knowledge base for the diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of mental health conditions in children and adolescents, and aims to integrate basic science, clinical research and the practical implementation of research findings. In addition, aspects which are still underrepresented in the traditional journals such as neurobiology and neuropsychology of psychiatric disorders in childhood and adolescence are considered.