Examining potential mediators between parents’ relational maintenance with college-age children and students’ perceived stress

This study examined outcomes of parents’ relational maintenance in terms of college students’ resilience, family communal coping, and stress. We employed the theory of resilience and relational load to examine the associations in the context of family communication. Participants included 322 college students who completed an online questionnaire. Results indicated that college students’ resilience mediates the relationship between parents’ relational maintenance strategies with them and their perceived stress, and that communal coping serves as a mediator between parents’ relational maintenance strategies and college students’ resilience. Lastly, a serial mediation model indicated that communal coping and college students’ resilience serially mediate the association between their parents’ relational maintenance strategies with them and their perceived stress. Overall, this study highlights the importance of parents employing parent-child relational maintenance tactics and the positive impacts for college students.