What really matters? Comparing parents' and adolescents' perceptions of parental meta-emotion philosophy as predictors of adolescents' positive mental health

This study examined parents' versus adolescents' reports of parental meta-emotion philosophy (PMEP) and compared the predictive power of parent-perceived versus adolescent-perceived PMEP on adolescents' positive mental health (i.e., mental health, life satisfaction, and resilience). Two hundred and nineteen Chinese parent-adolescent dyads responded to our survey. Results indicated a significant parent-adolescent discrepancy in perceptions of emotion coaching (one dimension of PMEP). The parents showed more optimism about their coaching practices than did the adolescents, as seen in the significantly higher mean score in parents' reports. In addition, adolescent-reported emotion coaching generally explained more variance in their mental health, life satisfaction, and resilience than parent-reported PMEP. Our findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the role of PMEP in affecting adolescent positive mental health and highlight that adolescent-perceived PMEP is a critical factor when examining adolescents' mental health.