Examining Associations Between Individual Exercise, Parent–Child Exercise, and Children’s Mental Health: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach

<b>Objective</b>: This study explores the associations between parent-child exercise and children's mental health from the perspective of family physical education. <b>Methods</b>: In total, 527 valid questionnaires were collected from students in grades four to six of three primary schools in Yuhang District, Hangzhou City, including a survey of the status of children's exercise and family sports and the SCL-90 symptom self-measurement scale. Based on an analysis of practical challenges in family sports engagement and children's mental health status, the data were analyzed and modeled using structural equation modeling to obtain a model of children's mental health promotion, with individual children's exercise as the primary factor and parent-child exercise as the mediator. <b>Results:</b> Both individual children's exercise and parent-child exercise were significant predictors of children's mental health promotion. Parent-child activities show a more significant negative correlation with symptoms of anxiety and depression than individual exercise alone. They also partially mediated the relationship between individual exercise and depression/anxiety symptoms. The indirect effects had confidence intervals of [-0.008, -0.001] for depression and [-0.007, -0.001] for anxiety. The direct effects of individual exercise on mental health (depression: β = -0.115; anxiety: β = -0.127) were stronger than the indirect effects and significantly positively correlated with parent-child exercise (β = 0.444, <i>p</i> < 0.05), suggesting that individual exercise may encourage more parent-child exercise. <b>Conclusions:</b> We propose a relational pathways model incorporating parent-child exercise as a mediating variable and individual exercise as the primary activity. This model is more closely aligned with real-life conditions and practical feasibility than approaches lacking such a family-based component.