Maternal parenting stress and social-emotional problems of Chinese preschoolers: The role of the mother-child relationship and maternal adverse childhood experiences

Previous research suggests that maternal parenting stress is a significant predictor of social-emotional problems in children. However, little is known regarding the mother-child relationship and the effect of maternal adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) on this association. Three waves of longitudinal panel data were collected from 2893 Chinese preschoolers with a follow-up interval of 6 months. The mothers of preschoolers were asked to complete anonymous questionnaires concerning demographic variables, maternal ACEs and parenting stress in Wave 1, mother-child relationships in Wave 2, and children's social-emotional problems in Wave 3. The parallel mediation model was conducted to analyze the mediating role of three dimensions of mother-child relationships, and the moderation model was conducted to examine the moderating role of maternal ACEs. The results showed that maternal parenting stress predicted children's social-emotional problems directly or indirectly through the mother-child relationship, with an intimate mother-child relationship mediating this main effect negatively but a conflicted and dependent mother-child relationship mediating this main effect positively. In addition, moderating results indicated that the main effect of maternal parenting stress on children's social-emotional problems was more marked among participants with at least one maternal ACEs than those without maternal ACEs. Furthermore, the moderating effect was only detected in children whose mothers had a high school education or less. The subjectivity of mothers' reports may somewhat reduce the credibility due to the possible overestimation or underestimation of children's social-emotional problems. These findings provide new evidence for the effects of maternal parenting stress on children's social-emotional development and highlight the need for more attention to children with mothers having ACE exposure, lower educational level and poor parent-child relationships.