The impact of maternal and paternal parenting styles and parental involvement on Chinese adolescents’ academic engagement and burnout

Academic burnout and engagement are important indicators of students’ school success. This short-term longitudinal study examined whether parenting styles and parental involvement (parent report, collected at Time 1) predicted adolescent-reported academic burnout and engagement (collected at Time 3, two months later) directly or indirectly via adolescents’ perceived parental support (collected at Time 2, one month later). A total of 285 Chinese high school students (M = 15.93 years, SD = 1.06 years, 51.9% boys) and their fathers and mothers participated in the survey over three time points (one month apart for each data collection). Path analysis results indicated that authoritative parenting predicted less academic burnout in adolescents. Perceived paternal support mediated the relations between paternal authoritative parenting and adolescents’ academic engagement. Parents’ knowledge and skills involvement positively predicted adolescents’ perceived support, which in turn, predicted more academic engagement. However, father’s time and energy involvement predicted lower perceived paternal support, especially for boys. Moreover, multi-group analysis suggested that fathers and mothers influenced boys’ and girls’ academic burnout and engagement differently. In conclusion, it is important to consider adolescents’ perception of parental support, their developmental needs, and gender roles in Chinese families in order to increase adolescents’ academic engagement and decrease students’ academic burnout.