Relationship between positive parenting and adolescents’ depressive symptoms: Evidence from a Chinese research survey

Background: Adolescents often carry their depression well into their adulthood. This creates perpetual difficulties for their family and society. Research on the relationship between positive parenting and adolescent depressive symptoms is rare. The protective effect of positive parenting on adolescent depressive symptoms also remains underexplored. Parents are a vital source of feedback that shapes adolescents’ self-view in crucial ways. Aims: This study examines the latent relationships between four factors related to positive parenting and adolescent depressive symptoms. Method: Using data from the Chinese Family Panel Studies (CFPS), Stata MP 17.0 was used for preliminary data processing and descriptive statistics. The structural equation model (SEM) was adopted to test the seven proposed hypotheses. Results: The study participants were 2,816 adolescents (52.34% male). The SEM showed that positive communication and parental praise can directly reduce depressive symptoms in adolescents (path coefficients of −0.24 and −0.13 [ p < .001], respectively). Additionally, both positive communication and positive parent-adolescent interactions can reduce adolescents’ depressive symptoms by heightening the intermediate factor of parental praise (path coefficients of 0.30 and 0.44 [ p < .001], respectively). Conversely, positive parent-adolescent interactions did not negatively affect adolescents’ depressive symptoms, as we hypothesized. Conclusions: High level of positive parenting negatively predicts the level of depressive symptoms among adolescents. Specifically, positive communication, positive parent-adolescent communication, and parental praise are the main protective factors related to positive parenting for adolescents’ depressive symptoms.