Parenting about challenges and adolescents' social anxiety, disrupted classroom concentration and resilience knowledge: the mediating role of authentic self-esteem

A large theoretical and empirical literature indicates that parenting practices affect young people’s well-being and resilience, but there is much still to learn about psychological mechanisms, especially beyond infancy/early childhood. A recent model of authentic self-esteem argues that it arises out of experiences of challenge situations shared with parents and that it can subsequently act as a protective factor that supports well-being and resilience among young people. The aim of the current study is to test: (i) if parenting about challenges can predict three indices of adolescents’ well-being, namely their (a) social anxiety, (b) disrupted classroom concentration, and (c) ability to spontaneously generate resilient strategies, and more substantially (ii) if authentic self-esteem can mediate those associations if found.
Adolescents (N = 836) completed a questionnaire that measured all of the study variables via self-report with the exception that unprompted open questions were used to gauge their ability to spontaneously generate resilient strategies.
Parental discussions of challenges did significantly predict all three well-being indices, and authentic self-esteem was found to mediate all of these relationships.
These results support the view that parenting about challenges is a practice that supports well-being and resilience in adolescents. It appears to do so through promoting the development of authentic self-esteem, a capacity to evaluate the self in a positive manner in the context of challenges. The theoretical and practical significance of these findings are discussed.