Parental warmth in mother-child dyads and children’s emotional adjustment during secondary-school transition: a longitudinal investigation on bidirectional relationships

Abstract The transition from primary to secondary school affects children’s psychological functioning, necessitating resources for (post-)transition adaptation. Maternal warmth serves as a valuable resource, buffering against negative transition effects on emotional adjustment. Nevertheless, little is understood about the bidirectional effects of (divergent) mother-child reports on emotional adjustment during the transition to secondary school. Data from 2101 German children (48.8% female, M age T1 = 8.57, SD age = 0.58) and their mothers ( M age T1 = 36.28, SD age = 4.49) from the pairfam panel, collected over seven annual waves from the children’s 3rd to 9th grades, were used. Random intercept cross-lagged panel models were employed to examine within-family cross-lagged effects. The findings suggest that early in the transition to secondary school, low levels of maternal warmth and heightened emotional problems in children tend to co-occur and mutually reinforce each other over time. However, discrepancies in perceptions between mothers and children appear to have positive normative consequences rather than enduring negative impacts on children, particularly before the transition to secondary school. The results are discussed considering the progressing school transition, with additional developmental changes, such as puberty, potentially leading to changes in perceived and actual maternal warmth and emotional problems in children.