Cultural Perspective on Parenting, Trait Emotional Intelligence and Mental Health in Taiwanese Children

Abstract

The current study aims to clarify the associations as well as the pathways through which parenting and children's emotional intelligence (EI) may influence children's mental health with a cross-sectional sample of 675 school pupils (fourth grade, mean age = 10.4 years, 310 boy, 356 girls and 9 unidentified) in Taiwan. Hierarchical regression and path analyses were used to examine the relationships between parenting styles, children's trait EI, and their psychological symptoms, with children's psychological symptoms as the dependent variable. The results showed that authoritative parenting was positively associated with children’s trait EI, which in turn had a negative effect on children’s psychological symptoms, whereas authoritarian and Chinese-specific parenting styles had direct negative effect on children’s psychological symptoms. These findings shed light on the pathways of the interrelations between different parenting styles, children's trait EI, and psychological symptoms, providing theoretical as well as practical implications for children's emotional development and mental health.

Keywords

• Parenting
• parenting styles
• emotional intelligence (EI)
• psychological symptoms
• child mental health