Parental Burnout and Adolescents’ Development: Family Environment, Academic Performance, and Social Adaptation

Abstract

The present study aimed to examine the effect and underlying mechanism of parental burnout on adolescents’ development as well as the mediating role of parental psychological control. Adolescents’ academic performance, and social distress were selected as developmental indicators. Data were collected on three different occasions using a time-lagged design. Questionnaires were distributed to 565 Chinese families. In the first phase of data collection, fathers and mothers were asked to provide data regarding their parental burnout separately. In the second phase, adolescents were asked to provide details regarding their perceived father and mother’s psychological control. In the third phase, adolescents were asked to provide information on their social distress. At the end of their term, academic performance scores on the final exams were collected. In total, data of 290 students (135 boys; Mage = 13.85 years) and their parents (for fathers age M = 41.91, and for mothers M = 40.76) were matched. The results of the multi-group structural equation model showed that parental burnout was negatively related to adolescents’ development indirectly through parental psychological control. Parental psychological control partial mediated the relation between parental burnout and academic performance, and fully mediated the relation between parental burnout with social adaptation. In addition, mothers’ parental burnout showed a stronger effect than fathers’. Mothers’ parental burnout generally showed significant effects on adolescents’ development, while the same indirect effects were not significant in the sample of fathers. These results showed the importance of mothers’ influence on adolescents in parenting activities, and therefore, attention should be paid to mothers in the intervention and prevention of parental burnout.