Parental Phubbing and School Adjustment in Chinese Adolescents: The Mediating Role of Parent–Child Conflict and the Moderating Role of Gender

Parental phubbing, as a family risk factor, is associated with adolescents’ mental health. School adjustment represents another important developmental domain among adolescents. Drawing upon ecological systems theory and family systems theory, this cross-sectional study recruited 3973 adolescents (M = 12.79, SD = 0.77). We separately examined whether paternal phubbing and maternal phubbing predicted overall school adjustment via father–child conflict and mother–child conflict, with gender as the moderator. Data analyses were conducted using SPSS 26.0 and Hayes’ PROCESS macro for correlation, mediation, and moderated mediation analyses. The results showed that paternal phubbing and maternal phubbing were negatively correlated with adolescents’ school adjustment. Father–child conflict partially mediated the association between paternal phubbing and school adjustment. Mother–child conflict partially mediated the association between maternal phubbing and school adjustment. Gender only moderated the path from maternal phubbing to mother–child conflict. The interaction term was significant, indicating that the positive predictive effect of maternal phubbing on mother–child conflict was stronger for girls. These findings enrich ecological systems theory and family systems theory, and provide empirical support for the coordinated development of family and school education.