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• Parental belief is associated with Child social-emotional development. • Parental investments mediate parental belief and child development. • The mediation effects vary across investments and developmental outcomes. • The varieties of play materials and activities are the strongest mediators. Parental investments are associated with early child outcomes, and some evidences outside China suggest that parental belief might affect parental investments. However, the interrelationships of parental belief, parental investments, and early child development has not been well documented in China. This paper aims to study the interrelationships between the caregiver's parental belief, the caregiver's parental investments, and the child's early developmental outcomes in rural China. A total of 1787 sample households in an undeveloped rural area of western China are enrolled in the cross-sectional study. A parental belief questionnaire, the Family Care Indicators (FCI), the Bayley Scales of Infant Development version III (BSID-III), and a socioeconomic questionnaire were used to measure the caregiver's parental belief on parenting practices, the caregiver's parental investments, the child's early developmental outcomes, and the socioeconomic characteristics of sample households, respectively. The mediation model was then applied to estimate the interrelationships. The results find that the caregiver's parental investments significantly mediate in the relationships between the caregiver's parental belief and the child's early developmental outcomes. Through parental investments, one standard deviation (SD) increase in the caregiver's parental belief is corresponding to 3% of one SD increase in the child's four developmental outcomes (cognition, language, motor, and social–emotion) respectively. For future studies aimed at designing targeted interventions on early child development in rural China, the key findings of this paper might be informative. Early interventions aimed at strengthening the caregiver's subjective belief on parenting practices and increasing the parental investments in the household might be effective to improve the development of rural children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Parental investment and skill mediate caregiver mental health and child development. • Caregiver depression are more harmful to parenting practices and child development. • The variety of play material has significant mediation effect on child development. • Coercive parenting mediate caregiver mental health and child development. Parenting practices are associated with early childhood development (ECD), and some evidences suggest that mental health might affect parenting practices. However, the interrelationships of mental health, parenting practices, and ECD outcomes have not yet been well documented in developing contexts like rural China. This paper aims to investigate the interrelationships between the caregiver's mental health, parenting practices, and the child's ECD outcomes in rural China. A total of 1787 sample households in an undeveloped rural area of western China are enrolled in the study. A socioeconomic questionnaire, the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale, the Family Care Indicators, the Parent and Family Adjustment Scales, and the Bayley Scales of Infant Development version III were used to measure the socioeconomic characteristics of sample households, the caregiver's mental health, parental investments and parenting skills, and the child's development outcomes, respectively. Mediation model was then applied to estimate the interrelationships. The results showed that parental practices significantly mediated between the caregiver's mental health and the child's cognition, language, motor, and social–emotion development. Through parental investments, one standard deviation increases in the caregiver's mental health test score was associated with the decline in the child's four development scores by 0.6% standard deviation, respectively. Through parenting skills, one standard deviation increases in the caregiver's mental health test score was associated with the decline in the child's language and social-emotional score by 2% and 5% standard deviation, respectively. Different dimensions of caregiver mental health, parental investments and skills played heterogeneous roles in the interrelationships. Early interventions aimed at improving the caregiver's mental health, parental investments and skills are important and might be effective to improve early childhood development in rural China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The gender disparities in DCM vary among different maltreatment subtypes. • DCM's negative effect was more severe for girls than for boys. • Gender heterogeneity is less evident than gender homogeneity in the risk factors. Currently, gender disparities in domestic child maltreatment (DCM) have become an important and highly controversial issue worldwide. This study aims to provide panoramic evidence from China on this issue. Data were derived from a survey of 4,308 children (M age = 12.13, 48.7% were boys) conducted in seven provinces in rural China from June to December 2019. This study used multistage cluster sampling to select respondents, and modified versions of the JVQ Scale and the DSM-5 Scale (11–17 years old) were adopted. This study reached three significant conclusions. First, the gender disparities in DCM vary among different maltreatment subtypes. Compared with girls, boys are more likely to experience physical abuse. A higher prevalence of neglect is observed among girls than among boys. Second, although DCM significantly increased the likelihood of posttraumatic depression for all children, its negative effect was more severe for girls than for boys. Third, gender heterogeneity is less evident than gender homogeneity in the risk factors for DCM. In rural China, children's problematic behaviours, family structure, parents' experiences of childhood violence and family relationships are common predictors of maltreatment for all children. This paper highlights gender differences in the risk of DCM among children in rural China, reveals the Confucian culture behind DCM and gender, and provides Chinese evidence for building an international dialogue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Explore the effect of work-family conflict on parenting stress for ADHD families. • Identify work-family conflict as a potent contributor to parenting stress. • Non-working parents have higher parenting stress than employed parents do. • Chinese mothers experience higher parenting stress than fathers do. • More research is needed given the absence of work and parenting stress research. This paper reports the results of a one-time survey among Chinese families of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) (n = 314) and families with typically developing (TD) children (n = 308) in mainland China, which aimed to examine the effects of the parenting role, work-family conflict, child ADHD symptoms, parental depression, anxiety, and somatization, parenting alliance, and social support on parenting stress. The results of the study have shown that (i) parents of children with ADHD experienced significantly higher levels of parenting stress than did parents of TD children; Chinese mothers experienced significantly higher parenting stress than fathers did; (ii) mothers of children with ADHD had more work-family conflict than mothers of TD children did; (iii) non-working parents had higher levels of parenting stress than the employed parents did; (iv) work-family conflict, depression, anxiety, and somatization, child ADHD symptoms, parenting role, and social support accounted for 40.9% of the variance in parenting stress; parenting alliances did not approach significance in the regression. Implications for social work practice and service development are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Adopted Chinese youth scored more favorably on BASC-3 than non-adopted Chinese youth. • Adopted Chinese youth scored more favorably on BASC-3 than non-adopted US youth. • High adoptive family SES benefited adopted youth adjustment. • Testing measurement invariance is important for cross-cultural comparison. In this paper, we examined if high SES families had an effect on youth's adjustment by comparing 226 internationally adopted female Chinese youth who experienced pre-adoption institutionalization with 1059 non-adopted Chinese peers living in China, as well as 209 non-adopted American peers. On average, the adopted youth's families had a higher SES status than the two comparison groups. Survey data on behavioral problems and prosocial adjustment were collected with the third edition of the Behavioral Assessment for Children (BASC-3). We found the adopted Chinese youth outperformed their Chinese counterparts in all comparisons and their US counterparts in most comparisons. These results offer some evidence that a high family SES may compensate for the adoption-related risks such as earlier institutionalization. Possible mechanisms underlying the benefit of high SES were discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]