Pathways among family socioeconomic status, parenting stress, home learning environment, and toddlers’ early academic skills

This study investigated how family socioeconomic status (SES), parenting stress, and home learning environment collectively shape children’s early academic learning concurrently and longitudinally. Drawing on the family investment model and the family stress model, we tested mediational models in which family SES predicted children’s early academic skills through parenting stress and home learning environment. Participants were 130 Hong-Kong-Chinese toddlers (76 girls; Mage = 33.09 months). Children’s early language, literacy, and math skills were measured at two timepoints six months apart. Parents reported families’ demographic information, parenting stress, and home learning environment at Time 1. Cross-sectional findings showed that family SES positively predicted children’s concurrent language and math skills through the mediation of home learning environment. Parenting stress negatively predicted children’s concurrent language, literacy, and math abilities through the mediation of home learning environment. Moreover, longitudinal findings indicated that home learning environment mediated the relationship between parenting stress and children’s math skills six months later after controlling for children’s prior level of math skills. However, the chained mediation paths involving both parenting stress and home learning environment as mediators serially between family SES and child outcomes were not significant. This study demonstrates the interwoven effects between family factors on promoting children’s early learning, highlighting the pivotal role of the home learning environment in multiple mediating processes.