Family‐Level Predictors of Children's Depressive Symptoms in China: A Longitudinal Moderated Mediation Analysis

ABSTRACT Understanding family‐related factors that predict adolescent depressive symptoms is an important topic in the field of child development and protection. The present study aims to bridge two main research gaps: (a) the potential mediating effects of parental monitoring (parental supervision and parental knowledge) between parent–child closeness and adolescent depressive symptoms and (b) the potential moderating effects of parents' confidence about their children's future on the association between parental monitoring and adolescent depressive symptoms. The present study builds a longitudinal moderated mediation model to fill the research gaps. A stratified multistage sampling design with a probability proportional to size was used in the investigation. Participants were 8062 Chinese adolescents aged 12–18 years (51.8% were male), and they provided data on the baseline (2013–2014 academic year) and follow‐up (2014–2015 academic year) surveys. Results showed that parental monitoring mediated the association between parent–child closeness and adolescent depressive symptoms. Additionally, the association between parental supervision and adolescent depression was stronger for those whose parents had lower confidence about their future compared with those whose parents had higher confidence about their future. Notably, the result illustrated that the moderating effect of parents' confidence about their children's future was insignificant.