Father–child relationship and children’s peer competence: Mediated by children’s emotional regulation and environmental adaptation

Abstract

This study aimed to explore father–child relationships and young children’s peer competence, as mediated by child emotional regulation and environmental adaptation. The children’s fathers and teachers completed peer competence, child emotional regulation and environmental adaptation measures on 216 Chinese children and their fathers. The results, following correlation analysis by SPSS 25.0 and validation analysis by AMOS modelling, demonstrated that: (a) a higher score on the parent–child relationship scale was associated with a higher children’s peer competence score; and (b) emotional regulation and environmental adaptation in the children’s ego resilience mediated between the father–child relationship and was associated with young children’s higher peer competence. These findings indicate that father–child relationship quality is important to children’s peer competence with superior emotional regulation and environmental adaptation. Therefore, educators should help enhance the parent–child relationship to improve children’s emotional regulation and school adaptation.