ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Health Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1505267
This article is part of the Research TopicRisk and Protective Factors, Family Environment and (A)Typical Neurodevelopmental Outcomes - Volume IIView all 9 articles
Coparenting and children's socio-emotional ability: the mediating role of parental stimulation
Provisionally accepted
- 1Zhongnan Hospital, Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei Province, China
- 2Zigong Fourth People's Hospital, Zigong, Sichuan, China
- 3School of Nursing, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
- 4Center for Nurturing Care Research, School of Nursing, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
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Background: Previous research has inadequately examined the interconnections among coparenting, parental stimulation, and children's social-emotional ability within the context of Chinese culture. Aim: Consequently, this study, guided by the coparenting ecological model framework, aims to investigate these relationships and to determine whether parental stimulation serves as a mediating factor. Methods: In this study, 330 mothers of children aged 12-36 months were selected in Community Health Service Center from April to October 2021 in Wuhan. The general information questionnaire, the Chinese version of Brief Coparenting Relationship Scale, the Infant and Toddler Social and Emotional Assessment, and the Family Care Indicators were distributed. AMOS 21.0 statistical software was used for mediating effect analysis. Results: In terms of social emotion, 10.3% of children had abnormal social emotion. Coparenting, parental stimulation, and children's social-emotional ability pairwise showed a positive correlation. Parental stimulation mediated the association between coparenting and social-emotional ability (β = .011, bootstrap 95% CI = .006, .018). Paternal stimulation and maternal stimulation played a chain mediating role in the relationship between coparenting and social-emotional ability (β = .004, bootstrap 95% CI = .002, .008). Conclusion: Children's social-emotional ability may be enhanced through interventions that guide and enhance coparenting and parental stimulation.
Keywords: coparenting, Parental stimulation, children's social-emotional ability, nurturing care, Mediating role
Received: 02 Oct 2024; Accepted: 05 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Xuena, Zhongqin Huang, Jun, Suqing and Yu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Wang Suqing, School of Nursing, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
Liping Yu, Center for Nurturing Care Research, School of Nursing, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
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