Predicting parental sense of competence: Associations with parent depression, social support, and child age

Past research highlights the importance of parenting sense of competence for parents’ and children’s well-being. Parent, child, and environmental factors interact with each other in their association with parenting sense of competence. Parental depression and parent social support have been shown to predict parenting sense of competence, but the results are inconsistent. Therefore, we assessed the interaction between parental depression, parent social support, and child age in their relationship with parenting sense of competence. The participants included 207 low or middle-income parents with children aged 2 to 6 years. The data was collected through online parent-reported questionnaires. The results showed a three-way interaction between the predictors. At low levels of parent depression, social support satisfaction was significantly and similarly associated with parental sense of competence at all child ages. However, at moderate or high levels of parent depression, the effect size for the association between social support satisfaction and parental sense of competence was higher at lower child ages. A greater number of people perceived as available for social support was also associated with a higher parental sense of competence at younger child ages, irrespective of the levels of parent depressive symptoms. The results have implications for developing interventions for enhancing PSOC. Specifically, social support can be an important factor in enhancing parents’ parental sense of competence and interventions may be better implemented at younger child ages, especially in parents with depression. Therefore, the study adds to existing research on the predictors of parental sense of competence.