Peer-reviewed article
Differential relationships of positive and negative parenting styles on primary school children's academic achievement: Learning anxiety and learning engagement matter.
Xu Y, Qi Y, Tao Y, Jing X, Wang Y et al. ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study examined how parenting styles affect primary school children's academic achievement through emotional and motivational pathways. Researchers followed 481 children (average age 10 years) and found that negative parenting directly reduced academic achievement, while both positive and negative parenting influenced achievement by affecting children's learning engagement. Learning anxiety and engagement acted as emotional and motivational mechanisms connecting parenting approaches to academic outcomes.
Key points
- Negative parenting had a direct negative effect on academic achievement, but positive parenting did not have a direct positive effect
- Both positive and negative parenting predicted academic achievement through increased learning engagement
- Learning anxiety did not mediate the relationship between parenting styles and academic achievement
- Learning anxiety and learning engagement acted as sequential mediators between positive parenting and academic achievement
- Study suggests parenting influences children's academic results by shaping their emotional and motivational characteristics
Limitations
The document does not specify the country or region where the study was conducted, limiting understanding of cultural context. The mechanisms by which negative parenting increases engagement despite reducing achievement are not clearly explained.
Abstract
Parenting styles are widely recognized as influencing academic achievement; however, the mechanisms underlying this relationship remain inadequately understood. Drawing on the dynamic systems theory and the family systems theory, the present study recruited 481 children (222 boys, Mage = 9.90 ± 0.69 years old) to investigate the longitudinal associations between positive/negative parenting styles and academic achievement and to further explore how learning anxiety and learning engagement may mediate these relationships. Results indicated that (1) negative parenting, but not positive parenting, had a negative direct effect on academic achievement; (2) both positive and negative parenting predicted higher academic achievement through increased learning engagement, but not through learning anxiety; and (3) learning anxiety and learning engagement acted as sequential mediators in the link between positive parenting styles and academic achievement. Overall, these findings highlight how parenting approaches shape children's learning and academic results by influencing their emotional and motivational characteristics from a developmental perspective.