Mindful parenting, parental involvement, and preschoolers’ emotional competence in parent-grandparent co-parenting families in China: an explanatory sequential mixed-methods study

Abstract

Emotional competence is central to preschoolers’ socioemotional development and is embedded in everyday family interactions. However, relatively little is known about how parenting processes operate in parent-grandparent co-parenting contexts in China. Guided by Belsky’s process model of parenting, this study examined how mindful parenting and parental involvement were associated with family resources, intergenerational caregiving, and preschoolers’ emotional competence within parent-grandparent co-parenting families. This study used an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design. In the quantitative phase, 4,020 parents from parent-grandparent co-parenting families in 40 kindergartens across eight provinces in China completed questionnaires. Hierarchical regression and Gaussian graphical network analysis were used to examine associations among parent characteristics, family resources, child characteristics, mindful parenting, parental involvement, and preschoolers’ emotional competence. In the qualitative phase, semi-structured interviews with 20 parents were analyzed using constructivist grounded theory. Quantitative results showed that mindful parenting, parental involvement, and grandparent support were positively associated with preschoolers’ emotional competence in the final regression model, whereas parental depression and child social withdrawal were negatively associated with it. In the network analysis, home-based parental involvement, mindful discipline, and grandparent support had relatively prominent positive bridge expected-influence point estimates, but these estimates did not differ significantly from one another. Qualitative findings elaborated how parents described emotional regulation, mindful responses, everyday involvement, intergenerational coordination, and adjustments to children’s behavior as interconnected aspects of family emotional caregiving. The findings highlight an associative parent-grandparent co-parenting ecology in which mindful parenting and parental involvement were related to family resources, intergenerational coordination, and preschoolers’ emotional competence. Efforts to support preschoolers’ emotional competence may therefore consider not only the extent of parental involvement, but also the emotional quality of parenting and the coordination of caregiving between parents and grandparents.