The role of co-parenting in preschoolers’ school readiness and an exploration of the underlying mechanisms

Co-parenting quality has been closely linked to children’s social-emotional competencies, yet few studies have examined its effects on academic and social-emotional domains simultaneously or the underlying mechanisms within the family systems. Drawing on a sample of 320 Chinese preschoolers ( M _age = 44.39 months; SD = 3.72; 53% girls, n = 170; 71% only child, n = 226) and their mother-father dyads, we investigated the effects of parent-perceived co-parenting on preschoolers’ pre-academic skills and social competence as well as the chain mediation effects via parenting practices and parent-child relationships. Maternal and paternal reports were analyzed separately. Results showed that mother-child conflict significantly mediated the effect of mother-reported co-parenting on children’s receptive language and early math; and father-child conflict significantly mediated the effect of father-reported co-parenting on children’s early math. Father-child closeness uniquely predicted children’s social competence. Although the full chain mediation was not significant, parenting practices significantly predicted parent-child relationships. The findings were generally consistent across parent-child dyads, only-child and non-only-child families, and households with and without high grandparental involvement, with only a few distinct paths observed in the mother-boy dyad and multi-child families. This study underscores the critical role of family relational quality (indexed by co-parenting and parent-child relationships) in fostering the multiple dimensions of school readiness in Chinese preschoolers.