Parenting Styles and Children’s Hot and Cool Self-Regulation: The Moderating Role of Parenting Stress

The development of self-regulation is influenced by children’s experiences at home, with parenting styles and parenting stress being important contextual factors. However, little is known about how parenting styles and stress are related to the emotional (hot) and cognitive (cool) aspects of self-regulation. This study examined the relationships between different parenting styles (authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive) and children’s performance on hot and cool self-regulation tasks and the role of parenting stress in moderating this relationship in Chinese households. The participants included 310 preschoolers (51% girls/49% boys; M_age = 4.96 years; SD = 0.96) enrolled in four kindergartens in Beijing, China. The hierarchical regression results showed that after controlling for demographic variables, the level of authoritative parenting positively predicted children’s cognitive flexibility performance, while parenting stress moderated the relationship between authoritative parenting and children’s inhibitory control performance. The positive association between authoritative parenting and children’s inhibitory control was found only among children who experienced a lower level of parenting stress. Parenting styles were not associated with children’s hot self-regulation or working memory performance. These findings provide nuanced evidence on the relationships between parents’ parenting style, parenting stress, and children’s performance on hot and cool self-regulation. The implications for parenting education and future studies are discussed.