The Influence Of Parental Involvement On The Parent-child Attachment And Mental Health Of Junior Middle School Students

Parental involvement refers to the participation of parents in cognition,emotion and behavior within the process of parenting,which is of great significance to the physical and mental development of teenagers.Based on the attachment theory,through two questionnaires,the mediating effect between parental involvement and mental health of junior high school students were examined,then emotional availability was introduced to evaluate the quality of parental involvement,and the moderating effect of emotional availability between parental involvement and parent-child attachment was explored.Specifically,study 1 collected data from 740 junior high school students and measured parental involvement,parent-child attachment quality with fathers and mothers,as well as subjects’ life satisfaction,depression and anxiety.The results of the SEM indicated that:(1)the direct effect of father parental involvement on life satisfaction was not significant,with positive direct effects on depression and anxiety.(2)The direct effect of maternal involvement was not significant;(3)Mother-child attachment and father-child attachment moderated the relationship between maternal involvement and life satisfaction,depression and anxiety;(4)Mother-child attachment and father-child attachment moderated the relationship between paternal involvement and life satisfaction,while there was a suppression effect between mother-child attachment,father-child attachment,depression and anxiety.Study 2 collected data from 586 subjects of junior high school students,which measured parental involvement,parent-child quality,parent-child attachment,parent-child emotional availability,and life satisfaction,depression and anxiety.The results of the SEM indicated that:(1)the direct effect of father parental involvement on life satisfaction and depression was not significant,with positive direct effects on anxiety.(2)Parent-child attachment had a significant mediation effect between parental involvement and parent-child attachment.(3)Emotional availability positively predicted parent-child attachment,and emotional availability had a negative effect between parental involvement and parent-child attachment.(4)Emotional availability moderated the mediation effect of parental involvement and life satisfaction,and of parental involvement and depression,and moderated the suppression effect of parental involvement and anxiety.When emotional availability is higher,the positive effect of parental involvement on parent-child attachment is weaker.In summary,the results of these two studies suggested that parental involvement had complex effects on the mental health of junior high students.The increased parental involvement may have a negative and direct impact on the mental health of junior high school students,and can also have positive and indirect effects on mental health by improving the quality of parent-child attachment.Therefore,parents should pay attention to improving the quality of the parenting in the parenting process of junior high school students,such as improving the emotional availability of parent-child interaction,so as to help establish a good parent-child attachment relationship and play the positive impact of parental involvement on children’s mental health.