Peer-reviewed article
Latent Profiles of Maternal Parenting Stress Moderate the Relationship Between Overparenting and Young Children's Social-Emotional Competence.
Xiao W, Liao S ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study examined how maternal parenting stress and overparenting affect young children's social-emotional competence in 445 mothers. The researchers identified three distinct stress profiles among mothers: disengaged, engaged-high-strain, and engaged-low-strain. Children whose mothers had low strain and high positive experience showed the strongest social-emotional competence, while those with disengaged mothers showed the weakest. The relationship between overparenting and children's development was strongest among mothers experiencing low strain.
Key points
- Three maternal parenting stress profiles were identified: disengaged, engaged-high-strain, and engaged-low-strain
- Children of engaged-low-strain mothers had the highest social-emotional competence; children of disengaged mothers had the lowest
- The effect of overparenting on children's social-emotional competence varies depending on the mother's stress profile
- Mothers with high positive experience and low strain showed stronger associations between overparenting and children's outcomes
- Maternal parenting stress is heterogeneous and two-sided, involving both positive experience and strain components
Limitations
The study does not specify the countries where data were collected, making generalizability unclear. The cross-sectional design means causal relationships cannot be established, and the sample consists only of mothers, without information on other caregivers or family contexts.
Abstract
This study examined how maternal parenting stress and overparenting are associated with young children's social-emotional competence using both variable-centered and person-centered approaches. A total of 445 mothers of young children completed measures of parenting stress, overparenting, and children's social-emotional competence. Variable-centered analyses showed that positive experience was associated with children's social-emotional competence through overparenting. Latent profile analysis identified three maternal parenting stress profiles based on different combinations of positive experience and strain, namely disengaged, engaged-high-strain, and engaged-low-strain. Children of mothers in the engaged-low-strain profile showed the highest levels of social-emotional competence, whereas those in the disengaged profile showed the lowest levels. Further analyses showed that the association between overparenting and children's social-emotional competence differed across maternal stress profiles. This association was significantly stronger among mothers with high positive experience and low strain than among mothers experiencing high strain. These findings suggest that the association between overparenting and children's development depends on mothers' broader parenting stress profiles. They also highlight the importance of considering the heterogeneous and two-sided nature of maternal parenting stress when examining its implications for children's social-emotional competence.