The Indirect Effects of Fathers’ Parenting Style and Parent Emotion Regulation on the Relationship Between Father Self-Efficacy and Children’s Mental Health Difficulties

Improving parental self-efficacy has been linked with reductions in child mental health difficulties; however, underlying mechanisms remain unclear, especially for fathers. This study investigated whether father self-efficacy influences child mental health difficulties indirectly through parenting style and parent-facilitated regulation of children's negative emotions. A community sample of American fathers (<i>N</i> = 350, M = 39.45 years old) completed self-reports on father self-efficacy, parenting styles, parent-facilitated emotion regulation, and their children's mental health difficulties (aged 4-12). Path analysis was used to test a cross-sectional, parallel-sequential indirect effect model. Father self-efficacy had a significant indirect effect on child mental health difficulties via three significant pathways of permissive parenting, authoritative parenting-acceptance of child's negative emotions, and authoritarian parenting-avoidance of child's negative emotions. Our model explained a moderate amount of variance in child mental health difficulties. The findings support promoting father self-efficacy through parenting interventions and highlight parenting beliefs as important for clinicians providing child mental health care.