Pathways from adverse childhood experiences to parenting competence: the roles of cognitive emotional regulation and social support.

Abstract

Background: Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) have been linked to various physical and psychological problems in adulthood, with their effects even carrying over into the next generation through disrupted parenting. To better address the impact of ACEs, identifying the key mediating and moderating factors that influence parenting outcomes is crucial.Objective: This study examined the relationships among ACEs, adaptive and maladaptive cognitive emotional regulation (CER), social support and sense of parenting competence within a sample of Korean mothers of infants.Methods: In this descriptive, cross-sectional study, 290 women raising young children completed an online survey using structured questionnaires. Descriptive statistics, univariate analyses, and moderated mediation analyses were conducted using SPSS and PROCESS Macro.Results: The final sample consisted of 290 first-time mothers (M = 33.02 years, SD = 3.08). Moderated mediation analysis showed that adaptive CER mediated the relationship between ACEs and sense of parenting competence, with this indirect effect being significantly moderated by social support (index of moderated mediation: B = 0.01, p < .01). It was found that mothers with higher levels of social support had stronger positive associations between adaptive CER and sense of parenting competence.Conclusions: These findings suggest that strengthening adaptive CER may be particularly effective for mothers with higher levels of social support. For those with lower levels of social support, the first priority should be enhancing social support to lay the groundwork for emotional regulation interventions.