The effects of parental monitoring and parent-child relationships quality on children's academic engagement in mother-headed, single-parent families

Using a sample of 110 mother-headed single-parent families, this longitudinal study examined the relationship between pre-adolescent students’ academic engagement and three variables: Parental monitoring, parent-child attachment, and observed child-parent relationship quality. Special interest resided in the extent to which observed relationship quality or attachment moderated the relationship between parental monitoring and academic engagement. Analyses indicated that observed relationship quality and parental monitoring predicted children’s academic engagement. However, evidence of moderation was found only for mother-headed families with a female child. In these families, both observed relationship quality and attachment moderated the relationship between parental monitoring and academic engagement. For girls, mothers’ parental monitoring and mother-child relationship quality predicted academic engagement. For boys, only parental monitoring was a significant predictor of academic engagement. Analyses also examined the effect of family income on academic engagement. For low income families, only parental monitoring predicted engagement. For high income families, only observed relationship quality predicted engagement. Beyond these two sets of relationships, no evidence for income-driven mediation or moderation was found