Parental rearing skills of rural-to-urban migrants mediate the negative effects of their mental health problems on their children

Background: Rural-to-urban migration has negative impacts on the mental health of both parents and children. Whether the mental health problems of migrant children are impacted by the mental health problems of their parents has rarely been studied. Methods We investigated 1274 parents and 1001 children aged 9–13 from two primary schools in Hangzhou, one for local children and one for rural-to-urban migrant children in a cross-sectional survey in 2022. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the hypothesis that parents’ rearing skills could mediate the negative effect of parents’ mental health problems on their children. Results The migrant groups, including children, fathers, and mothers, all had higher levels of mental health problems than their urban local counterparts. The difference in the mental health of children can be largely extinguished by socioeconomic status of the family. When mothers had anxiety, children had a higher level of self-blaming tendency (q FDR =0.009) and sensitive tendency (q FDR =0.009). Parental mental health had significant impacts on their rearing skills, with more effects on self-reported than children-reported. Parents’ rearing skills were associated with the mental health of their children, with a stronger association observed for children-reported rearing styles and among urban children. In SEM, emotional warmth and self-confidence were negatively associated with both mothers’ anxiety and children’s anxiety tendency. In contrast, overprotection/over-interference was positively associated. Conclusion More action should be taken to improve the mental health of migrant children. Our findings suggest that a key strategy is to reduce migrant mothers' anxiety symptoms and improve their parenting skills.