Parent work–life conflict and adolescent adjustment during COVID-19: Mental health and parenting as mediators.

Abstract

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic is an unprecedented challenging time for parents and adolescents. The present study examines the role of parent work-life conflict on adolescent adjustment (i.e., academic engagement and mental health) and family processes (i.e., parental mental health and parenting) as potential mediators for this association. A total of 692 middle school students (53.2% boys; M age = 13.54 years, SD age = 0.58) and their parents (29.6% fathers and 70.4% mothers; M age = 44.75 years, SD age = 4.14 years) completed an online survey in May 2020 in Beijing, China. Results indicated that many parents (24.6%) experienced work-life conflicts amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings also showed that parent work-life conflict was negatively associated with youth academic engagement and mental health indirectly through parental mental health difficulties and parenting behavior (parental control, autonomy granting, and parental involvement). In addition, parental mental health difficulties had direct and indirect effects on youth adjustment via parenting behaviors, such that parental involvement and autonomy granting predicted greater academic engagement and covitality (co-occurrence of positive traits and positive mental health), whereas the parental control predicted youth mental health difficulties. Our findings extend prior research by examining the pathways linking parental work-life conflict to youth adjustment during COVID-19. Findings are discussed in terms of how to better support families and promote better youth academic engagement and well-being during COVID-19.

The Social and Economic Impact of Covid-19 on Family Functioning and Well-Being: Where do we go from here?

“…Families are on the front line of finding ways to adjust to the so-called “new normal”. School and day-care closures, homeschooling, inadequacies in the availability of technology, unequal divisions of household labor, and increased strain, especially for women, loss of contact with non-residential family members, death of family members, and other health concerns are among the most mentioned stressful situations that families are navigating (Lee & Ward, 2020 ; Kelley et al, 2022 ; Petts et al, 2020 ; Power, 2020 ; Wang et al, 2022 ).…”

Job satisfaction as a mediator between family-to-work conflict and satisfaction with family life: a dyadic analysis in dual-earner parents

“…According to Matias & Recharte ( 2021 ), the adolescence period is an interesting context in which to study work-family dynamics, given the adolescents’ needs for both independence and support from their parents, and the latter’s desire to keep a sense of control over their adolescents’ decisions. Developmental changes in adolescence entail challenges and vulnerabilities that disturb the entire family system, and which require that parents and adolescents constantly renegotiate their boundaries (Matias & Recharte, 2021 ; Wang et al, 2022 ). Parents’ must invest time and emotional resources to respond to their children’s needs, and job stressors can lead to an energy depletion that negatively impacts the parent-adolescent relationship (Hagelskamp & Hughes, 2016 ).…”

“…Parents’ must invest time and emotional resources to respond to their children’s needs, and job stressors can lead to an energy depletion that negatively impacts the parent-adolescent relationship (Hagelskamp & Hughes, 2016 ). The demands of parent-adolescent dynamics have increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, as parents struggle to balance their work while supporting their children’s autonomy and educational and mental health needs (von Soest et al, 2022 ; Wang et al, 2022 ). In the COVID-19 context, adolescents are at a lower risk of contagion than older populations (Lacomba-Trejo et al, 2020 ), but are at a higher risk of lower well-being and higher distress due to the interruption of their developmental tasks (Orellana & Orellana, 2020 ).…”

COVID-19 Stressful Life Events and Chinese Adolescents’ Mental Health: Examining Resilience, Peer Relationship, and Parenting as Moderators

“…Perhaps, parents’ critical comparison practices compounded with the ongoing negative experiences (e.g., quarantine, isolation from friends, virtual learning) during pandemic further disrupts youth’s ability to overcome challenges. Previous research showed that some Chinese adolescents made positive interpretation of parental control and viewed it as an expression of love and caring ( Wang et al, 2022 ). However, during COVID-19 pandemic, adolescents experience a lot of stress and live in a highly controlled environment (e.g., quarantine).…”