Centre for Child and Family Science, The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
Centre for Psychosocial Health, The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Apr 23;19(9):5133. doi: 10.3390/ijerph19095133.
Previous research suggests that self-compassion is associated with mental health and well-being. However, little has been done to understand the role of self-compassion in the family context. Hence, the present study investigated the associations between parents' self-compassion, parent's depressive symptoms, and child adjustment. A total 189 Chinese parents (101 mothers) whose children were 2-8 years old were recruited to complete a questionnaire, including measures of parents' self-compassion, depressive symptoms, and children's prosocial behavior, internalizing problems, and externalizing problems. Findings indicated mediation effects, in that parents' depressive symptoms mediated the association between their self-compassion and child adjustment outcomes, namely children's internalizing and externalizing problems, after controlling for the effects of monthly family income, child gender, and parent gender. Competing hypothesis suggested that parents' self-compassion did not moderate between parents' depressive symptoms and child adjustment outcomes. Hence, the association between parental depressive symptoms and child adjustment was not dependent on the level of parents' self-compassion. As an implication, researchers and practitioners should be made aware of the benefits of parents' self-compassion on parents' mental health and child adjustment.
先前的研究表明，自我同情与心理健康和幸福感有关。然而，对于自我同情在家庭环境中的作用，我们知之甚少。因此，本研究探讨了父母的自我同情、父母的抑郁症状与孩子适应之间的关系。共招募了 189 名中国父母（101 名母亲），他们的孩子年龄在 2 至 8 岁之间，完成了一份问卷，其中包括父母自我同情、抑郁症状和孩子亲社会行为、内化问题和外化问题的测量。研究结果表明存在中介效应，即在控制了月家庭收入、孩子性别和父母性别等因素的影响后，父母的抑郁症状在其自我同情与孩子适应结果（即孩子的内化和外化问题）之间存在中介作用。竞争性假设表明，父母的自我同情并不能调节父母的抑郁症状和孩子的适应结果之间的关系。因此，父母的抑郁症状与孩子的适应之间的关系并不取决于父母自我同情的程度。这意味着，研究人员和从业者应该意识到父母自我同情对父母心理健康和孩子适应的益处。
