Understanding the interplay among parental involvement, parental self-regulation, and child adjustment: A latent profiles analysis and cross-validation

High levels of parental involvement in children's learning and education bring considerable benefits to children and act as a protective factor for difficulties in children's social, emotional, and behavioral adjustment. Parental self-regulation and efficacy have been found to have positive associations with both their contributions to the home-school partnership and to children's wellbeing. However, most previous studies examining these relationships have applied an "average" approach that overlooked potential individual differences. Using latent profile analysis, this study aimed to investigate the individual differences in the interplay among parental involvement, parental self-regulation and parenting self-efficacy, and children's social, emotional, and behavioral problems. Data were drawn from a survey of 2265 parents of primary-school-aged children in Australia. The sample was randomly split into two similar sized subsamples (N = 1147 and N = 1125) to cross-validate the profile solution and the results of subsequent analyses. We identified four distinct parent profiles: proactive (42.4%), adequate (28.6%), help-seeking (16.9%), and disengaged (12.0%). Profile memberships were associated with a range of child and parent demographic factors, parenting practices, family adjustment, and parental emotional adjustment. These findings contribute to a better understanding of the considerable individual differences in the parent population. These findings also highlight the need for schools to utilize practical strategies to promote parenting capacity, strengthen home-school partnerships, and address child adjustment difficulties.