Maternal and paternal burnout and social–emotional competence of children: the role of parental meta-emotions in a dyadic model

Objectives Previous research on emotional socialization has primarily relied on mothers, limiting insight into paternal roles and cross-spousal association. To address this knowledge gap, we employed the actor–partner interdependence model to simultaneously examine maternal and paternal burnout and associations with child socioemotional competence (SEC) incorporating parental meta-emotion philosophy (PMEP). Methods In this study, we analyzed 390 family triads (father–mother–child). Fathers and mothers independently reported Parental Burnout Assessment (PBA) and PMEP, and children reported SEC. An actor–partner interdependence mediation model (APIMeM) was employed to investigate actor indirect mediation and partner indirect mediation of parents on the SEC of their children. Results There was a significant indirect association between paternal burnout and child SEC in the model incorporating paternal emotion coaching [indirect effect = −0.043, 95% CI (–0.086, −0.005)]. Maternal burnout and the SEC of children demonstrated significant indirect associations in models incorporating maternal emotion-dismissing [indirect effect = −0.034, 95% CI (–0.073, −0.006)] and emotion dysfunction [indirect effect = −0.043, 95% CI (–0.090, −0.011)]. Although emotion non-involvement correlated positively with parental burnout, its indirect effect on the SEC of children was not statistically significant, as it did not represent a significant indirect association between burnout and child SEC. Significant partner effects suggested that burnout in one parent was associated with maladaptive PMEP of the other parent. Conclusion In our cross-sectional APIMeM framework, parental burnout demonstrated indirect associations with SEC of children involving maternal and paternal meta-emotion dimensions. Notably, the indirect effect involving emotion non-involvement was not significant, indicating that non-involvement does not exhibit a statistically significant indirect association within the model.