Maternal parenting stress and social-emotional problems of Chinese preschoolers: The role of the mother-child relationship and maternal adverse childhood experiences

Background: Previous research suggests that maternal parenting stress is a significant predictor of socialemotional problems in children. However, little is known regarding the mother-child relationship and the effect of maternal adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) on this association. Methods: Three waves of longitudinal panel data were collected from 2893 Chinese preschoolers with a follow-up interval of 6 months. The mothers of preschoolers were asked to complete anonymous questionnaires concerning demographic variables, maternal ACEs and parenting stress in Wave 1, mother-child relationships in Wave 2, and children's social-emotional problems in Wave 3. The parallel mediation model was conducted to analyze the mediating role of three dimensions of mother-child relationships, and the moderation model was conducted to examine the moderating role of maternal ACEs. Results: The results showed that maternal parenting stress predicted children's social-emotional problems directly or indirectly through the mother-child relationship, with an intimate mother-child relationship mediating this main effect negatively but a conflicted and dependent mother-child relationship mediating this main effect positively. In addition, moderating results indicated that the main effect of maternal parenting stress on children's social-emotional problems was more marked among participants with at least one maternal ACEs than those without maternal ACEs. Furthermore, the moderating effect was only detected in children whose mothers had a high school education or less. Limitations: The subjectivity of mothers' reports may somewhat reduce the credibility due to the possible overestimation or underestimation of children's social-emotional problems. Conclusion: These findings provide new evidence for the effects of maternal parenting stress on children's socialemotional development and highlight the need for more attention to children with mothers having ACE exposure, lower educational level and poor parent-child relationships.