The effects of mother-father relationships on children’s social-emotional competence: The chain mediating model of parental emotional expression and parent-child attachment

Mother-father relationships, as one of the key elements of the marriage subsystem, play an essential function in the improvement of social-emotional competence. The study used social learning theory as an analytic framework to consider the potential mechanisms by which mother-father relationships influence social-emotional competence. Therefore, 802 children and their parents from 54 classes in 27 preschools in China were selected to research the chain-mediating function of parental emotional expression and parent–child attachment in mother-father relationships affecting social-emotional competence. The results indicated that (1) Mother-father relationships significantly and positively predicted social-emotional competence. (2) Parental emotional expression and parent–child attachment separately fully mediated the relationship between mother-father relationships and social-emotional competence. (3) Parental emotional expression and parent–child attachment were chain mediators between mother-father relationships and social-emotional competence. This study highlights the important contribution of mother-father relationships in the improvement of social-emotional competence. Hence, parents are supposed to realize the significance of mother-father relationships in the cultivation of social-emotional competence. Meanwhile, parents should express emotions rationally in the family. They should give their children effective support and companionship to form a high-quality parent–child attachment, which ultimately affects the improvement of social-emotional competence.