During the Covid-19 outbreak, parents, particularly working mothers, encountered difficulties balancing their careers and home related tasks especially when dealing with children at home throughout the pandemic. Challenges in coping with various issues during the pandemic have been found to play an important role in impacting parent-child relationships. The present study examines the relationships between perceived impact of Covid-19 pandemic, parental stress, harsh parenting and parent-child relationship quality among working mothers in Malaysia. A total of 295 working mothers with at least one child aged three to twelve years old, participated in this study. The findings revealed that perceived impact of Covid-19 pandemic, parental stress and harsh-parenting were significantly related with each other and were critical predictors of parent-child relationship quality. Parental stress was found to be the strongest predictor, implying the importance of mental health in helping parents to survive the ordeal during the difficult time. Fundamentally, working mothers who reported a higher impact of Covid-19 pandemic, higher parental stress, and practiced a high level of harsh parenting tend to have poor parent-child relationship quality. Stress management is deemed critical in helping parents to perform their roles and preventing negative consequences on parent-child relationships.
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