Parents' education anxiety and adolescents' academic burnout: The role of parenting style and academic self-efficacy

Abstract

Parents in the examination-based education system place great importance on the academic performance of the next generation. This study investigates the relationship between parental educational anxiety and adolescents' academic burnout, focusing on the mediating roles of parenting style (emotional warmth, rejection, and over-protection) and academic self-efficacy in Chinese families. The findings indicate that parental educational anxiety can affect adolescents' academic self-efficacy through emotional warmth but not through rejection and being over-protective. Importantly, emotional warmth and academic self-efficacy mediated between parental educational anxiety and academic burnout, both parallelly and sequentially. This study underscores the importance of positive and supportive parenting practices in alleviating academic stress among adolescents in high-pressure educational environments.