Interparental Conflict and Chinese Children’s Social Development

Interparental relationship is one of the substantial factors that affect children’s mental well-being and emotional development in a family. Interparental conflicts are pervasive in most families, which may have adverse effects on children. However, interparental conflict in China received restricted attention, and social research about marital conflict has limited focus on children. A cross-sectional survey of 846 students was conducted to explore the correlations between interparental conflict and Chinese children’s social anxiety and life adjustment. The results showed that more perceived threat, persistent and unresolved conflicts, older age, and lower coping efficacy were associated with increased social anxiety in children while paternal education of high school was related to lower social anxiety. Child-related and unresolved conflicts, greater intensity of the conflict, frequent conflict, and paternal education of college and above were associated with impaired children’s life adjustment development. Perception of interparental conflicts was closely associated with children’s social development.

Caught in a vicious cycle? Explaining bidirectional spillover between parent-child relationships and peer victimization

Relationships with parents and peers are crucial for children's socialization, but how parent–child and peer relationships mutually affect each other is not well understood. Guided by spillover theory, we zoomed in on the bidirectional interplay between parental rejection and warmth on the one hand and peer victimization on the other, and examined whether children's maladjustment symptoms mediated hypothesized cross-domain spillover effects. Data stem from five waves of the longitudinal KiVa study among 9,770 children (50% boys; mean age = 9.16, standard deviation = 1.29). Results from random intercept cross-lagged panel models showed that higher parental rejection and lower parental warmth predicted increases in peer victimization and vice versa across waves, thus supporting the bidirectional model. Moreover, spillover from parent–child rejection and warmth to peer victimization was partially driven by children's depressive symptoms and bullying perpetration. Vice versa, spillover from peer victimization to parent–child rejection and warmth was partially driven by children's social anxiety, depressive symptoms, conduct problems, and bullying perpetration. Thus, children might get caught in persistent problems in two important social domains, and these two domains influence each other through children's maladjustment. Family and school interventions should be integrated to prevent a downwards spiral.

The Association Between Extra-Curricular Sport Participation and Social Anxiety Symptoms in Children

Social anxiety is a common psychological complaint that can have a significant and long-term negative impact on a child’s social and cognitive development. In the current study, the relationship between sport participation and social anxiety symptoms was investigated. Swiss primary school children (N=201), parents, and teachers provided information about the children’s social anxiety symptoms, classroom behavior, and sport involvement. Gender differences were observed on social anxiety scores, where girls tended to report higher social anxiety symptoms, as well as on sport activity, where boys engaged in more sport involvement. MANCOVAs with gender as covariant showed no differences in social anxiety symptoms between children involved in an extracurricular sport and those not engaged in sport participation. Nevertheless, children engaged in team sports displayed fewer physical social anxiety symptoms than children involved in individual sports.