Parental Burnout and Adolescents' Growth Mindset: An Exploratory Two-Wave Study

Owing to rapid economic development and increasing social complexity, parenting stress has intensified for many families. When parents are exposed to parenting-related stress without sufficient coping resources, they may become vulnerable to parental burnout. Based on two-wave parent-adolescent dyadic data, this study explored whether parental neglect and parental violence may serve as potential indirect pathways linking parental burnout to adolescents' growth mindset.

Using a semi-longitudinal design, we collected two waves of survey data one month apart from 382 middle-school students and their parents in a city in Central China. An initial cross-lagged panel model (CLPM) was estimated based on the proposed hypotheses. Because the initial model showed poor fit, it was modified based on the modification indices and theoretical considerations, yielding the final model.

The final model showed acceptable fit, χ²(15) = 39.15, RMSEA = 0.065, CFI = 0.978, and TLI = 0.952. T1 parental burnout was significantly and positively associated with T2 neglect (β = 0.20, p < 0.001), and T1 neglect was significantly and negatively associated with T2 growth mindset (β = -0.13, p < 0.01). The indirect effect = -0.02, 95% CI [-0.033, -0.003], p < 0.05. Supplementary analyses also showed a generally consistent pattern of results.

These findings provide preliminary evidence that parental neglect may be an important linking pathway between parental burnout and lower levels of adolescents' growth mindset.