BECE. Newsletter 

Vol.15, No.1, 2023, BECE 1795 

 

 

 

 

The Impact of Parent-Child Separation on Students’ 

Social and Emotional Skills: The Mediating Effect of 

Parent-child Interaction and the Moderating Effect of 

Home-school Collaboration 

By Qian, J. & Cao, Y. 
Correspondence to: Jia Qian, Central China Normal University, China. E-mail: 

qianjia@ccnu.edu.cn  

OCIAL and emotional skills are essential to individuals’ goal achieve-

ment, collaboration with others, and emotion regulation. Developing 

social and emotional ability in students is a meaningful practice to improve 

the quality of education and promote student holistic development as well as 

an active reaction to social changes.  

The parental “absence” induced by parent-child separation can signif-

icantly influence child growth, particularly child social and emotional devel-

opment. This study utilized the data from the OECD’s Survey of Social and 

Emotional Skills (SSES) in China to analyze the mediating effect of parent-

child interaction and moderating effect of home-school collaboration on the 

impact of parent-child separation on students’ social and emotional skills. 

Research findings included: 

i. Parent-child separation significantly and adversely affected child social 

and emotional development by reducing parent-child interaction, which 

verified the mediating path of “parent-child separation - parent-child in-

teraction - children’s social and emotional skills.” 

ii. High-quality home-school collaboration could positively moderate the 

above mediating effect, thus mitigating the negative impact of parent-

child separation on student social and emotional development to certain 

extent. 

The article proposed suggestions as follows: 

 Parent-child separation does not necessarily mean the absence of paren-

tal instruction. Parents should increase parent-child interaction and 

home-school collaboration to alleviate its negative effect. 

 Teachers should offer students more emotional support and provide par-

ents with more guidance on home education to offset the negative im-

pact of emotional deficiency caused by parent-child separation. 

 Schools should improve the environment of home-school partnership to 

support student social and emotional development. 
Source: Education & Economy, 2023; 39(3):45-52+85. 

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mailto:qianjia@ccnu.edu.cn