Explore the relationships between parents' wellbeing literacy, their subjective wellbeing, and parenting

Abstract

Parenting practices play a crucial role in shaping children’s behavioral outcomes. Categorized on the broadband positive and negative dimension levels, broadband positive parenting includes proacting parenting, positive reinforcement, warmth, and supportiveness. Broadband negative parenting involves hostility and physical control. Wellbeing literacy, a novel construct in wellbeing science, is characterized by the capability to comprehend and compose wellbeing language and to use such language intentionally across contexts to maintain or improve the wellbeing of oneself or others. The current study aimed to validate the Traditional Chinese version of the Wellbeing Literacy 6-item (Well-Lit 6), examine the role of wellbeing literacy in parenting, and explore the mechanism of the relationship between wellbeing literacy and parenting. Parents of children from three to eighteen years old who understand Traditional Chinese (N= 332) were recruited to complete an online cross-sectional survey. Results suggested that the Traditional Chinese version of Well-Lit 6 showed adequate validity, proving a valid and reliable tool for assessing wellbeing literacy. It was also found that wellbeing literacy positively predicts positive parenting and negatively predicts negative parenting. Mediation analyses suggest that subjective wellbeing in parents mediates the relationship between wellbeing literacy and positive parenting, while psychological distress mediates the relationship between wellbeing literacy and negative parenting. The implications and limitations of the study are discussed.