How Parents' Enneagram Types Influence Perceived Positive Parenting Attitudes and Parent-Child Communication: The Moderating Role of Children's Emotional Intelligence

Understanding how parental personality traits and children's emotional intelligence play into the parenting process is essential to finding effective parenting practices that support children's healthy growth and development. This study categorized parental personality traits into Enneagram types (gut-centered, heart-centered, and head-centered) and analyzed the structural causal relationships between these types and positive parenting attitudes, child emotional intelligence, and parent-child communication. We surveyed 223 parents in Gwangju for 10 days from August 19, 2024. SPSS 27.0 and AMOS 27.0 were used to analyze the collected data. The results showed that heart-centered and head-centered parents had a significant positive effect on positive parenting attitudes, and positive parenting attitudes had a significant positive effect on parent-child communication. Children's emotional intelligence was found to positively moderate the relationship between positive parenting attitudes and parent-child communication. The study confirms that parents' Enneagram type influences positive parenting attitudes and parent-child communication, and that children's emotional intelligence moderates this relationship. Based on this, it is necessary to develop a customized parenting and communication training program that takes into account the personality type of the parent and the emotional characteristics of the child.