The Influence of Parents’ Educational Expectations on Children’s Development: The Chain Mediation Role of Educational Anxiety and Parental Involvement

In the social context of the “Educational Involution”, the educational expectations of parents have a potential influence on the development of children. High parental educational expectations create parental anxiety, which in turn results in a rise in parental involvement and eventually promotes the growth and progress of children. The current study administered an electronic questionnaire to 891 parents of young children in four provinces of China. The questionnaire included the Parental Educational Expectations Scale, the Educational Anxiety Scale, the Parental Involvement Scale, and the Child Development Scale. This study used SPSS 27.0 for statistical data analysis and the SPSS macro program PROCESS to explore the mediation role. We found that (1) educational anxiety plays a mediating role between parental educational expectations and child development; (2) parental involvement has a mediating effect between parental educational expectations and child development; and (3) educational anxiety and parental involvement play a chain mediating role between parental educational expectations and child development. In conclusion, parental educational expectations appear to contribute to child development, and this effect may be mediated individually and sequentially by educational anxiety and parental involvement.