Family sports environment and emotional regulation in Chinese adolescents: the mediating roles of sports lifestyle and parent-child interaction.

Résumé

UNLABELLED: Against the backdrop of increasingly prominent mental health issues among adolescents, insufficient development of the family sports environment, a key external factor associated with emotional regulation, has emerged as a critical but often overlooked determinant of psychological stability and resilience among Chinese youth. In particular, the absence of an active sports lifestyle and structured parent-child interaction patterns may be associated with impaired emotional regulation processes, highlighting the need to examine the associational pathways.OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to investigate the association between the family sports environment and emotional regulation abilities among Chinese adolescents and to explore the serial indirect associations of sports` lifestyle and parent-child relationship within a theoretically informed mediation model.METHODS: A cluster sampling survey was conducted among 750 Chinese adolescents. Data were collected using the Family Sports Environment Scale, the Adolescent Emotional Regulation Scale, the Sports Lifestyle Scale, and the Parent-Child Relationship Scale. All variables were measured at a single time point using self-report questionnaires.RESULTS: (1) No statistically significant differences were observed across gender or age in family sports environment, emotional regulation, sports lifestyle, or parent-child relationship ( > 0.05); (2) The family sports environment was significantly and positively associated with emotional regulation ( = 0.698,