Relationship Between Maternal Warm Parenting and Preschoolers’ Aggression: Mediating Effects of Negative Emotionality and Moderated Mediating Effect of Sleep Problems

Abstract

This study examines the indirect association between maternal warm parenting and aggressive behavior via negative emotionality among preschoolers at the age of 4 years. It further investigates whether child sleep problems moderate the indirect path. The study used data from the Panel Study on Korean Children (PSKC; N=2,150), a nationally representative longitudinal study. The mean age of the preschoolers was 4.25 years, with 49.3% being girls. Descriptive statistics, Pearson’s correlation, mediation and moderated mediation analysis were conducted using SPSS ver. 27 and PROCESS Macro ver. 4.2 with Model 14. The results revealed that maternal warm parenting at age 4 is negatively associated with concurrent aggressive behavior, among preschooolers at age 4 and this relationship is significantly mediated by negative emotionality at age 4. Specifically, maternal warm parenting appears to reduce negative emotionality, which in turn mitigates aggression in preschoolers. In addition, this indirect path is moderated by sleep problems at age 4. The negative indirect effects of maternal warm parenting on aggression, mediated by negative emotionality, is significantly stronger for children with higher levels of sleep problems at age 4 than for those with lower levels of sleep problems. These findings suggest that supportive parenting practices can serve as a potentially protective buffer against early aggressive behavior for preschoolers with high sleep difficulties.