Effects of parental empathy and emotion regulation on social competence and emotional/behavioral problems of school‐age children

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

IMPORTANCE: Parents take the lead in parent-child interactions and their emotion regulation ability and empathy during parenting may be associated with children's emotional/behavioral problems. However, the specific mechanisms underlying these associations remain unclear. OBJECTIVE: The present study aimed to explore the effect of parental empathy and emotional regulation on social competence and emotional/behavioral problems in school-age children. METHODS: A questionnaire-based survey was conducted with 274 parents of 8-11-year-old children using Achenbach's Child Behavior Checklist, the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, and the Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy. RESULTS: 37). Compared with the parents of children in the control group, parents of children with emotional/behavioral problems had significantly lower cognitive empathy scores, mainly manifested by low perspective-taking and online simulation abilities. Mediation analysis showed that parental cognitive empathy had an indirect effect on children's emotional/behavioral problems through children's social competence. INTERPRETATION: Parental empathy may have a subtle influence on the social competence of school-aged children, which further affects the severity of children's emotional/behavioral problems.