| Parent-child conflict is an unavoidable phenomenon in family life,and it is especially prominent in the families of middle school students.The increase in parent-child conflict problems faced by the secondary school student population in China in recent years may be related to the parenting philosophy of parents and the emotional expression of children.Serious parent-child conflict not only leads to the breakup of parent-child relationship,but also damages the physical and mental health of both parents and children.For this reason,exploring the factors influencing parent-child conflict will help improve the parent-child relationship between the conflicting parties and promote the psychologically healthy development of children.Previous studies have explored the influence of adolescents’ individual characteristics and family environment on parent-child conflict,and less frequently explored the influence of parental characteristics,child characteristics,and the process of interaction between the two parties on parent-child conflict.Parental meta-emotional philosophy refers to the characteristics and cognitive attitudes of parents’ emotional responses to their own or their children’s emotional behaviors,and is divided into four types: emotional teaching,emotional rejection,emotional disorder,and emotional non-interference philosophy.Emotional expression is divided into three dimensions: positive emotional expression,negative emotional expression,and emotional impulse intensity.Whether parental meta-emotional concepts and secondary school students’ emotional expressions are related to parent-child conflict and how to avoid parent-child conflict need to be further explored.Therefore,this study aimed to investigate the relationship between parental meta-emotional concepts,secondary school students’ emotional expressions,and parent-child conflict.In this study,815 secondary school students and their parents were administered the Parent Meta-Emotional Concept Scale,the Emotional Expression Scale,and the Parent-Child Conflict Scale.The Emotional Expression Scale and the Parent-Child Conflict Scale were completed by the middle school students,and the Parent Meta-Emotional Concepts Scale was completed by the fathers or mothers of the middle school students.The following findings were obtained from the analysis:(1)Among the four factors of parental meta-emotional philosophy,parental emotion teaching philosophy significantly and negatively predicted parent-child conflict;parental emotion disorder,emotion rejection,and emotion non-interference philosophy significantly and positively predicted parent-child conflict.(2)Among the three factors of emotional expression,positive emotional expression negatively predicted parent-child conflict;emotional impulse intensity positively predicted parent-child conflict;negative emotional expression was not significant in predicting parent-child conflict.(3)Parental emotion rejection concept and emotional impulse intensity interacted with parent-child conflict: when parental emotion rejection concept was high,the emotional impulse intensity of middle school students had a highly significant positive predictive effect on parent-child conflict;when the emotional impulse intensity of middle school students was high,the parental emotion rejection concept had a significant positive predictive effect on parent-child conflict.Parental emotion rejection concept interacted with positive emotion expression to influence parent-child conflict: when parental emotion rejection concept was low,middle school students’ positive emotion expression had a borderline significant predictive effect on parent-child conflict.(4)Parental emotion disorder concept and positive emotion expression interacted to influence parent-child conflict:when parental emotion disorder concept was low,middle school students’ positive emotion expression had a borderline significant predictive effect on parent-child conflict;when middle school students’ positive emotion expression was low,parental emotion disorder concept had a significant predictive effect on parent-child conflict.(5)There was no significant interaction effect of each factor of parental emotion teaching,emotion non-interference concept and emotion expression on parent-child conflict.The results of this study provide certain insights for parents and schools to carry out mental health education for secondary school students: pay attention to parents’ perception and handling of their own emotions and their children’s emotions,pay attention to children’s inner needs;pay attention to children’s emotional expressions in parent-child interactions,and guide children to express their emotions rationally. |
