Title: The Mediating Effects of Parenting Stress, Child’s Temperament and Emotional Regulation in the Relationship Between Mother’s Parenting Sensitivity and Child’s School Readiness
Abstract: Objectives The study was conducted to verify the mediating effects of parenting stress, childâs temperament, and emotional regulation on the relationship between mothersâ parenting sensitivity and preschoolersâ school readiness. Methods Questionnaires were distributed among a total of 400 parents and 286 teachers, finally each of 271 were analyzed, from 12 institutes of early childhood education in K area. The model was tested using the SPSS and AMOS programs. Results First, mothersâ parenting sensitivity had a direct impact on parenting stress, the childâs temperament, and emotional regulation. Second, the motherâs parenting stress had a direct effect on childâs emotional regulation, but childâs temperament had no effect on it. Third, parenting sensitivity partially mediated the effect of parenting stress, and parenting stress had a serial multiple mediating effect on school readiness, through mediating childâs emotional regulation. Parenting sensibility also affected school readiness through mediating childâs emotional regulation. Fourth, parenting stress influenced school readiness by fully mediating childâs emotional regulation. However, childâs temperament did not affect emotional regulation, and had no mediating effect on school readiness through emotional regulation. Conclusion The higher the motherâs parenting sensitivity, the lower the rate at which parenting stress increases. This, then, continuously led to the increase of childâs emotional regulation. This, in turn, had a more positive impact on school readiness. In addition, this study found that mothersâ parenting sensitivities enhance the childâs emotional regulation and improves their school readiness. Keywords: parenting sensitivity, school readiness, parenting stress, temperament, emotional regulation