Psychological Development and Education ›› 2026, Vol. 42 ›› Issue (4): 490-501.doi: 10.16187/j.cnki.issn1001-4918.2026.04.04

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The Dynamic Relations between Daily Parenting Anxiety and Children’s Prosocial Behaviors: Associations with Mindful Parenting

BI Shuang1, ZHU Hualin1, ZHOU Hui2   

  1. 1. Department of Applied Psychology, College of Public Administration, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou 510410;
    2. Mental Health Education & Counseling Center, Sun Yat-sen University, Zhuhai 519082
  • Published:2026-07-04

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Abstract: This study examined the day-to-day dynamics between parental parenting anxiety and children’s prosocial behavior, as well as the role of mindful parenting, using a dailydairy method. Additionally, we explored whether mindful parenting, a higher-order parenting attitude, influenced both children’s daily prosocial behaviors and parents’ daily parenting anxiety. Parents of 71 children aged 7~13 (M = 9.99, SD = 1.49; 50.7% boys, 49.3% girls) completed a one-time measure of mindful parenting and subsequently reported their daily parenting anxiety and children’s prosocial behavior for 15 consecutive days. The findings revealed that: (1) There are significant daily variations in children’s prosocial behaviors, and higher than usual prosocial behavior on day t-1 predicted lower parenting anxiety on day t; (2) Mindful parenting, assessed as a between-person variable, was associated with higher within-person mean levels of prosocial behavior across the 15 days and lower within-person mean levels of parenting anxiety. Greater mindful parenting attitudes were also linked to less fluctuation in parenting anxiety. These findings highlight the predictive role of children’s prosocial behavior in reducing subsequent parenting anxiety and suggest that mindful parenting attitudes are associated with daily patterns of both constructs.

Key words: prosocial behaviors, parenting anxiety, mindful parenting, daily diaries

CLC Number: 

  • B844
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