Recharging exhausted parents: How and when involvement in children's education increases working parents' flourishing at home and engagement at work

Abstract

Parental involvement in children's education is highly valued and encouraged in many societies. While existing research has mainly focused on the positive effects parental involvement has for children, we argue that engaging in such quality parent–child interactions can also be a resource‐gaining process for parents. Drawing on the conservation of resources theory and the work–home resources model, the current study aims to investigate how and when working parents' involvement in children's education enhances their well‐being at home and engagement at work. Using a two‐wave survey of 206 full‐time employees with at least one school‐aged child, our results indicate that for parents experiencing higher levels of parental burnout, involvement in their children's education enhances their flourishing experience at home and subsequently improves work engagement and creative process engagement at work. Overall, our study contributes to the well‐being and work–family interface literature by highlighting the positive effect of parental involvement, an underexplored construct, on working parents' well‐being both at home and in the workplace. This study also provides practical implications for burned‐out working parents that they can benefit from involving themselves in their children's education to cope with and thrive from family demands.