Parental stress and meaning in life among, national religious, fathers and mothers of latency age children: The role of parenting style experienced in childhood, personality variables and the quality of the marital relationship

Children's development requires parents to be responsive and adaptable to their children changing needs, in addition to their own encounter with their "inner child" and parenthood they experienced. This process can cause stress, but at the same time may lead the parent to a process of self-development and finding new meaning in life (Demick, 2002; Le & Impett, 2019). The present study is based on the parenthood model of Belsky (Belsky, 1984), who claims that parental experience and actual parental behavior are the result of a combination of different ecosystems., This study examined religious parents, with several  variables: personal (age, gender, financial condition and number of children) , past experience (the parenting style the  parent in the study experienced ), personality (self-awareness consisting of the dimensions of reflection and rumination) and environmental characteristics (the quality of marital relationship and being in therapeutic relationship), to predict the sense of stress and meaning in life. In addition, the study examined whether the quality of marital relationship mediates the relationship between the parenting style experienced in the parent's past and the meaning of life. Furthermore, the study also examines the differences between fathers and mothers in these variables, understanding that they may be different in the way they experience parenting (Pudrovska, 2008; Gao & Cummings, 2019).                                                                                                                                                The study focused on the latency stage (age 6-12) in a child's development', a time when the child moves from the family micro-system to a broader system (education system & social system) outside the nuclear family (Grafi-Fisher, 2015). Latency is a developmental stage that leads to many emotional struggles and challenges for the child (Shustorovich & Weinstein, 2010), an issue that affects the parent-child relationship and the parent's self-concept. The changes the child undergoes by disengaging from the family circle can increase the parenting stress and at the same time lead the parent into meaningful search processes. These processes may be particularly powerful among religious parents who enjoy a community and social space that encourages meaningful search and reduces stress (Henderson, Uecker & Stroope, 2016).

Participants in this study included 163 religious parents, 60 fathers and 103 mothers of latent children (6-12). After obtaining consent from all the participants they were asked to complete a structured questionnaires which included the following dependent variables: Perception of parenting stress (child perception as difficult, parental distress, negative interaction in parent-child relationship), the presence of meaning in life and the search for meaning and the following independent variables: The parenting style the participant  experienced in his past, self-awareness (rumination and reflection), evaluation of the participant marital relationship and socio-demographic variables.

The findings of the study revealed that mothers in comparison to fathers are characterized by a higher perception of their child difficulty to cope and more rumination, as a dimension of self-awareness (first study question). It was also found that parents who were/are in therapeutic contact compared to parents who were not, did report more self-reflection ,  high negative interaction with their child and lower marital relationship evaluation (the second research question). The first study hypothesis was partially confirmed. An authoritative parenting style previously experienced was found to be associated with less parental pressure on three dimensions and a higher presence of meaning in life, whereas an authoritarian parenting style previously experienced was associated with more parental pressure on three dimensions. The second research hypothesis was almost fully corroborated. It was found that rumination was associated with more parental stress on its three dimensions and with less presence of meaning in life, whereas self-reflection was associated with less parental stress in the negative interaction dimension with the child and more searching of meaning in life. The third research hypothesis was confirmed. It was found that good marital relationship is associated with less parental stress on its three dimensions and a higher presence of meaning in life. Finally, the fourth study hypothesis was partially corroborated. It has been found that the quality of marital relationship fully mediates the relationship between an authoritative parenting style previously experienced and the presence of meaning in life.                                                                                                             

In relation to the theoretical contribution, the present study examines the relationship between self-awareness and the quality of marital relationship to parental stress and meaning in parent life, a relationship that, to my knowledge, has not been investigated so far. In addition, the study refers to religion as a space that allows parental pressure to be reduced and the sense of meaning to be raised. The importance of the study is that it marks the map of variables that may contribute to reducing parenting stress and increasing the sense of meaning in life among religious parents of latent children, thus contributing to both theory and practice in parenting.                                 

The findings may allow professionals working with parents of latent children to build empirical knowledge-based interventions for the benefit of these parents, while addressing differential interventions for religious mothers and fathers.