Parents' and adolescents' perceptions of parental involvement and their relationships with depression among Chinese middle school students during the COVID-19 pandemic

Keqiao Liu; Yang Yang; Miao Li; Siqi Li; Kai Sun; Yong Zhao

doi:10.1016/j.childyouth.2021.106190

Parents' and adolescents' perceptions of parental involvement and their relationships with depression among Chinese middle school students during the COVID-19 pandemic

Child Youth Serv Rev. 2021 Oct:129:106190. doi: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2021.106190. Epub 2021 Aug 5.

Authors

Keqiao Liu¹, Yang Yang², Miao Li³, Siqi Li⁴, Kai Sun⁵, Yong Zhao⁶

Affiliations

¹ School of Public Finance and Public Administration at Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics, Nanchang, China.
² Center for Educational Science and Technology, Institute of Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences at Beijing Normal University, Zhuhai, China.
³ Department of Sociology at Shandong University, Jinan, China.
⁴ Research Institute of Science Education at Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
⁵ Shandong SDU Basic Education Group, Jinan, China.
⁶ Aoti Zhonglu Campus of the Middle School Affiliated to Shandong University, Jinan, China.

Abstract

Although psychological stress that adolescents may encounter during the COVID-19 pandemic has been of increasing interest to scholars, few studies have examined the profound impact that parents give to adolescents when staying indoors. This study surveyed 1,550 students and their parents from eight middle schools in eastern China. We employed multiple linear regressions with school fixed effects to examine the different perceptions of parental involvement between parents and children, and the relationships between these different types of parental involvement and depression in middle school students. Results indicated that discrepancies existed in their perceptions of behavioral aspects of parental involvement, including parental academic involvement, parent-teacher communication, and parent-child communication. Most saliently, higher levels of parental academic involvement (B = 0.051, p < 0.05) and lower levels of parent-child communication (B = -0.084, p < 0.05) perceived by students were associated with higher levels of depression. These findings contribute to the understanding of the association between parental involvement and students' mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; China; Depression; Middle School Students; Parental Involvement.