Maladaptive emotion-focused coping and anxiety in children: the moderating role of authoritative parenting

Zoe Sau Yi Kwan, Barbara Chuen Yee Lo, Ting Kin Ng

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleResearchpeer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This one-year longitudinal study examined the potential buffering role of authoritative parenting in the relationship between maladaptive emotion-focused coping and anxiety in children. Participants were 128 preadolescent children (41.4% female) aged between 10 and 14 years (M = 12.15, SD = 1.30) in Hong Kong. The results of the latent moderated structural equations model revealed that T1 paternal authoritative parenting significantly moderated the association between T1 maladaptive emotion-focused coping and T2 anxiety while controlling for T1 anxiety, such that the association was weaker when T1 paternal authoritative parenting was higher. T1 maladaptive emotion-focused coping was positively related to T2 anxiety when T1 paternal authoritative parenting was low. This relationship was not significant when T1 paternal authoritative parenting was medium or high. Unexpectedly, the moderating role of T1 maternal authoritative parenting was not significant. These findings suggest that paternal authoritative parenting may function as a protective factor that ameliorates the unfavorable impact of maladaptive emotion-focused coping on anxiety in children.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)22781-22790
Number of pages10
JournalCurrent Psychology
Volume42
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Anxiety
  • Authoritative parenting
  • Maladaptive emotion-focused coping
  • Parenting

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