Community, Work & Family

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Work–family conflict and toddler parenting: a

dynamic approach to the role of parents’ daily
work–family experiences in their day-to-day
parenting practices through feelings of parental
emotional exhaustion

Katrijn Brenning, Elien Mabbe & Bart Soenens

To cite this article: Katrijn Brenning, Elien Mabbe & Bart Soenens (2023) Work–family
conflict and toddler parenting: a dynamic approach to the role of parents’ daily work–family
experiences in their day-to-day parenting practices through feelings of parental emotional
exhaustion, Community, Work & Family, 26:4, 507-524, DOI: 10.1080/13668803.2022.2037517

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13668803.2022.2037517

Published online: 16 Feb 2022.

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COMMUNITY, WORK & FAMILY
2023, VOL. 26, NO. 4, 507–524
https://doi.org/10.1080/13668803.2022.2037517

Work–family conflict and toddler parenting: a dynamic

approach to the role of parents’ daily work–family
experiences in their day-to-day parenting practices through
feelings of parental emotional exhaustion
Katrijn Brenning, Elien Mabbe and Bart Soenens
Department of Developmental, Personality and Social Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

The objective of this study was to examine associations between Received 28 May 2021
daily fluctuations in work–family conflict (i.e. work-to-family Accepted 25 January 2022
interference [WFI] and family-to-work interference [FWI]) and daily
KEYWORDS
fluctuations in toddler parenting (i.e. controlling parenting Diary study; work–family
practices), thereby investigating day-to-day feelings of parental conflict; Parental emotional
emotional exhaustion as an underlying mechanism. Both mothers exhaustion; Parenting
and fathers participated in a five-day diary study when their child
was in the first year of kindergarten (N = 118, 53.39% fathers). At
the between-person level, work–family conflict (both WFI and
FWI) was significantly related to controlling parenting practices.
Further, an indirect effect was found between work–family
conflict (both WFI and FWI) and controlling parenting via parental
emotional exhaustion. At the within-person level, work–family
conflict (both WFI and FWI) was not directly related to controlling
parenting practices but was indirectly related to controlling
parenting via feelings of emotional exhaustion. The findings
highlight the importance of balancing work and family life, both
in terms of parents’ mental health (i.e. parental emotional
exhaustion) as in terms of the quality of parenting.

The present study aims to investigate work–family conflict (both work-to-family interfer-
ence [WFI] and family-to-work interference [FWI]) in relation to controlling parenting prac-
tices during toddlerhood. Due to the rise of dual-earner families, parents of young
children often find themselves juggling with work and family roles. In previous research,
work–family conflict was found to be related to parental mental health problems (Green-
haus et al., 2006), but research on the link with child outcomes and parenting more
specifically is still scarce (see Cho & Ciancetta, 2016 as an exception). Nonetheless,
based on the spillover-crossover process models of family functioning (see the work–
family model by Cho & Ciancetta, 2016), parental experiences of work–family conflict,
that are not part of the child’s immediate world (exosystem) are expected to influence
child outcomes via shaping parents’ behaviors in the family (e.g. controlling parenting
practices). Further, the process through which work–family conflict may affect parent–

CONTACT Katrijn Brenning katrijn.brenning@ugent.be Department of Developmental, Personality and Social

Psychology, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, Ghent, Belgium
© 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
508 K. BRENNING ET AL.

child interactions remains underexposed. The present study aims to investigate feelings
of parental emotional exhaustion as a possible underlying mechanism in the link
between work–family conflict and parenting (Roskam et al., 2017). Because of its
energy-depleting effect, work–family conflict could be expected to relate to feelings of
parental emotional exhaustion, which could in turn relate to more maladaptive parenting
practices (Mikolajczak et al., 2019). Based on the self-regulation theory (Sanders et al.,
2019) and previous research (e.g. research on psychological availability; Danner-Vlaardin-
gerbroek et al., 2013), desirable parenting practices such as autonomy supportive parent-
ing are expected to require more energy and self-regulatory resources, thus are more
difficult for drained parents to engage in.
To investigate the present study’s main research question, we went beyond an exam-
ination of between-person differences by addressing possible day-to-day variation within
parents’ work–family conflict, feelings of emotional exhaustion and parenting practices.
The investigation of these within-person differences, next to between-person differences,
is important both from a theoretical and applied perspective. Whereas the between-
person perspective investigates differences between parents (e.g. why some parents
experience more emotional exhaustion than other parents), the within-person approach
investigates dynamic changes across time within parents’ own functioning (e.g. why one
parent feels more exhausted in the parenting role on certain days and not on others). The
within-person state-like approach also enables us to examine—in addition to general pre-
dictors as specified in the job demands–resources theory (Bakker & Demerouti, 2017)—
more proximal, situational predictors of parental well-being (i.e. parental emotional
exhaustion) and parenting. If certain dynamics do indeed occur at the within-person
(day-to-day) level of analysis, these processes may be changeable and a potential
target for intervention. As such, from an applied perspective, within-person fluctuations
(i.e. dynamic factors), next to between-person differences (i.e. dispositional factors), can
form interesting targets for prevention and intervention. For example, although chronic
work–family conflict is expected to increase the risk of emotional exhaustion, there
may also be fluctuations within experienced work–family conflict, providing an interest-
ing path for solution-focused therapy.

Work–family conflict
Work–family conflict arises when work and family are mutually incompatible in some
respect, often due to limits in a person’s time and energy (Goode, 1960). Work–family
conflict includes both work-to-family interference (WFI) and family-to-work interference
(FWI). For example, if parents have the goal to be successful at work, the pursuit of this
goal may require spending long hours at the office which may interfere with the goal
of being available for one’s child (i.e. WFI). On the other hand, if parents have important
responsibilities and difficulties at home, family stress might make it more difficult to
perform and concentrate at work (i.e. FWI). Work–family conflict has been investigated
intensively, with many studies focusing on its antecedents (for a review see Byron,
2005) and consequences for parental general well-being (for a review see Greenhaus
et al., 2006). However, consequences of work–family conflict are also expected for the
quality of parent–child interaction. Because work–family conflict depletes energy,
people are less able to attend to others’ feelings and plans (Cho & Ciancetta, 2016;
 COMMUNITY, WORK & FAMILY 509

Sanders et al., 2019). Translated to the theme of parenting, this would mean that work–
family conflict would be related to more maladaptive parenting practices (Cho & Cian-
cetta, 2016). Preliminary evidence for this reasoning was obtained by Cooklin et al.
(2015, 2016), who found that work–family conflict was associated with more suboptimal
parenting (i.e. less warm and more irritable parent–child interactions). Yet, the underlying
process linking work–family experiences with parenting remains underexposed. Parental
feelings of emotional exhaustion could be one important mechanism in these
associations.

Parental emotional exhaustion

Parental emotional exhaustion, the core component of parental burnout, refers to feelings
of being overextended and depleted of one’s emotional and physical resources in inter-
action with the child (Roskam et al., 2017). Theoretically, because of its energy-depleting
effect, work–family conflict could be seen as one important factor inducing parental
exhaustion (Mikolajczak & Roskam, 2018; Roskam et al., 2017). Previous cross-sectional
research indeed found evidence for a positive link between work–family conflict and
symptoms of parental burnout (Brenning et al., 2022; Van Bakel et al., 2018). In turn feel-
ings of parental emotional exhaustion would relate to suboptimal parenting as exhaus-
tion may direct attention to one’s personal agenda and decreases the availability of
resources needed to meet parenting-related demands. Studies indeed showed that par-
ental burnout was related to more maladaptive parenting practices such as child abuse,
violence and neglect (e.g. Griffith, 2020; Mikolajczak et al., 2019). Further, one previous
study examined parental psychological availability as an underlying mechanism linking
workday residuals to parenting (Danner-Vlaardingerbroek et al., 2013). Psychological
availability could be seen as the counterpart of emotional exhaustion, as it refers to a
parent’s ability and motivation to direct psychological resources toward the child. The
results of this study showed that parents’ psychological availability acted as a link
between workday residuals (e.g. work-related negative and positive mood) and the
quality of parent–child interactions after the workday. However, to the best of our knowl-
edge, the indirect link from work–family conflict to parenting via feelings of parental
emotional exhaustion has never been studied.

Toddler parenting
To investigate associations between work–family experiences and parenting, the present
study deliberately chose to focus on toddler parenting as the developmental period of
toddlerhood generally forms a particular challenge for parents. Toddlerhood is typically
characterized by increased emotional upheaval and by a renegotiation of the parent–
child power balance in which toddlers typically want to decide for themselves (Verhoeven
et al., 2019). Familiar statements of toddlers such as ‘No!’ ‘Do it myself!’ demonstrate these
assertions of independence. As parents have to deal with a more opinionated child,
parents have to figure out how to support children’s need for autonomy (Kennedy-
Moore & Lowenthal, 2011). According to Erikson (1998), parents need to meet toddler’s
growing autonomy with tolerance and understanding. However, autonomy-supportive
parenting practices during the developmental period of toddlerhood may form a parental
510 K. BRENNING ET AL.

challenge requiring enough energy and sufficient focus on the child’s perspective, which
is not always available possibly resulting into more controlling parenting practices.
The present project will focus on controlling parenting, an outcome of maladaptive
parenting that is central in the broad developmental literature as well as in a more
recent motivational account of parenting (Ryan & Deci, 2017). Parental control involves
parents imposing their own agenda and engaging in pressuring, intrusive, and manipu-
lative practices to enforce this agenda (Grolnick, 2003). With regard to controlling parent-
ing, two subcategories can be distinguished, these are, externally and internally
controlling parenting (Ryan, 1982; Soenens & Vansteenkiste, 2010). Externally controlling
parenting refers to the degree to which parents oblige their child from the outside by
invoking external contingencies, such as punishment (physical or verbal hostility) and
controlling rewards. These parenting behaviors fit in well with the concept of over-reac-
tive parenting. Internally controlling parenting on the other hand refers to the degree to
which parents put pressure on their child from within by acting on feelings that can create
tension and conflict in the child. Examples of internal pressure are guilt induction,
responding to feelings of shame, and giving conditional attention. These parenting prac-
tices fit in well with the concept of psychological control.
Based on theory (e.g. Erikson’s theory of development, Erikson, 1998; Self-Determi-
nation Theory, Ryan & Deci, 2017) and previous research, parental autonomy support is
important for toddler’s well-being. The provision of autonomy and reasonable choice
will encourage the child to gain self-confidence and security (Verhoeven et al., 2019). In
contrast, controlling parenting (e.g. criticizing the child when he fails at new skills) will
lead the child to feel forced and shamed or doubts his ability to control impulses and
act competently on his own. Indeed, previous research already provided abundant
support for the importance of autonomy support and the detrimental role of controlling
parenting during toddlerhood (Laurin & Joussemet, 2017; Laurin et al., 2015; Linkiewich
et al., 2021; Obradovic et al., 2021).

The present study

The main objective of the present study is to examine the link between work–family
conflict and parenting via feelings of parental emotional exhaustion. More specifically,
the present study tested the hypotheses (a) whether work–family conflict (both WFI
and FWI) is significantly related to controlling parenting, both at the level of (fairly
stable) differences between parents and daily fluctuations within parents, and (b)
whether work–family conflict (both WFI and FWI) is significantly related to controlling par-
enting via feelings of emotional exhaustion, both at the between- and within-person
level. Because of its energy-depleting effect, work–family conflict (both WFI and FWI) is
expected to relate to parental exhaustion. Indeed, when your job takes too much of
your (private) time (WFI), you may feel no energy left to take care of your children. On
the other hand, when you need to focus on your work but the stress at home makes
that difficult for you (FWI), it can exhaust you as a parent. In turn, parental exhaustion
may lead parents to become more self-centered and less attuned to the child. As auton-
omy supportive parenting requires parents’ focus on children’s perspectives (Ryan & Deci,
2017), rather than prioritizing their own personal agenda, this is more difficult for drained
parents to engage in resulting in more controlling parenting behaviors.
 COMMUNITY, WORK & FAMILY 511

The unique contribution of the present study is mainly twofold. On the one hand,
added value lies in its methodological contribution focusing on both between- and
within-person differences. As much previous research in the parent–child study domain
focused on relatively stable, between-person differences (e.g. Cho & Ciancetta, 2016),
the present project tries to provide a dynamic picture of the interplay between work–
family conflict, parental emotional exhaustion and parenting. This focus on within-
person differences meshes with a more general trend in psychology to analyze develop-
mental phenomena both at between-person and within-person levels (Molenaar & Camp-
bell, 2009), and manifests also in the domain of work–family experiences (e.g. Allen &
Martin, 2017; Butler et al., 2005) and parenting (e.g. Aunola et al., 2017; Van der Kaap-
Deeder et al., 2019). Further, although the vast majority of studies on parental burnout
focuses on chronic aspects of exhaustion (between-person view), an important question
remains whether only between-person variability is expected. Empirically, there are argu-
ments to assume that parental emotional exhaustion fluctuates on a daily level. More
specifically, recent studies by Soenens (2019), Gillis & Roskam (2020) on parental
burnout support day-to-day fluctuations.
As a second main contribution, the present study includes both mothers and fathers.
Indeed, past research has rarely included fathers when examining work–family experi-
ences (Cho & Ciancetta, 2016), and parenting research is still largely focused on
mothers (Fabiano, 2007). Although fathers are expected to be more equal partners in par-
enting, other studies show how the ultimate responsibility often still lies with mothers
(Townsend, 2002). The present study investigates whether the detrimental role of
work–family conflict and parental exhaustion holds across mothers and fathers.

Method
Participants
The sample of this study consisted of 118 Dutch-speaking Caucasian parents (53.39%
fathers) that were contacted through four nursery schools in Flanders. All parents with
a child in the first year of kindergarten, who combine work and family life, were invited
to participate in this study. The initial sample (N = 178, 35.4% fathers) consisted of both
families where one parent participated (always the mother only) as well as families
where both parents participated (mother and father participation). To avoid (partial)
dependency in the sample, we included only one parent per family. In the one-parent-par-
ticipation-families this was naturally always the mother. In the two-parent-participation-
families, we selected the father to obtain approximately as many mothers as fathers
(thereby removing the mother data in the two-parent-participation-families). As such,
all participants in the sample were independent. Mothers had a mean age of 33.43
years (SD = 4.01; range 24–42 years). Regarding the level of education, 36.40% of the
mothers earned a university degree, 45.50% had a (non-university) higher education
degree, and 18.20% had a diploma of secondary education. The majority of mothers
(85.50%) were married or lived together with their partner, 10.90% were divorced,
1.80% deliberately chose to be a single parent and 1.80% was a widower. With regard
to number of children, 32.70% of the mothers indicated that they had one child,
49.10% of the mothers had two children, 16.4% had three children whereas 1.80% had
512 K. BRENNING ET AL.

four children. Regarding work, 83.60% of the mothers worked as an employee while
16.40% of the mothers was self-employed. The children of the mothers had a mean
age of 40.63 months (SD = 4.56; range 31–47 months).
Fathers had a mean age of 35.02 years (SD = 5.25; range 23–54 years). Regarding the
level of education, 14.30% of the fathers earned a university degree, 41.30% had a
(non-university) higher education degree, and 44.40% had a diploma of secondary edu-
cation. All fathers were married (100%). With regard to number of children, 23.80% of
the fathers indicated that they had one child, 60.30% of the fathers had two children
and 15.90% had three children. Regarding work, 87.10% of the fathers worked as an
employee while 12.90% of the fathers was self-employed. The children of the fathers
had a mean age of 38.83 months (SD = 5.47; range 29–51 months).

Procedure
Through four nursery schools in Flanders (Belgium), mothers and fathers with a child that
was in the first year of kindergarten and who combine work and family life were asked to
participate in our study. Specifically, on the evening of the parent-teacher conference, an
advertising stand was placed in the entrance hall of the school to recruit all mothers and
fathers who are willing to participate. Parents were instructed to complete the diary on
five working days. Preferably five consecutive working days, but if parent did not work
for one of more days, these five working days could also be spread over two working
weeks. Each completed day in the present study is therefore a day of the week that
parents were actually at work. A specific time frame to take the survey was also suggested.
Specifically, parents were asked to fill out the diary at the end of each day when the child
was asleep. Ethical approval for this study was granted by the organizing university’s Insti-
tutional Review Board (IRB).

Measures
As the present study focuses on within-person next to between-person differences, the
study relies on several well-validated questionnaires that were adapted to a diary
format. Cronbach alphas of each measure are included in Table 1.

Work–family conflict
To capture daily fluctuations in work–family conflict, participants filled out a modified
version (i.e. a selection of eight items) of the ‘multidimensional measure of work-family

Table 1. Correlations at the between- and within-person level.

Between-person level Within-person level
1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4
1. WFI
2. FWI .52*** .16**
3. Emotional exhaustion .49*** .44*** .17** .20**
4. Control .29** .56*** .65*** −.06 .07 .37***
M 2.07 1.53 1.55 2.02
SD 0.94 0.64 0.66 0.55
Α .88 .89 .96 .88 .73–.82 .70–.79 .71–.93 .70–.79
Note: **p < .01. ***p < .001.
 COMMUNITY, WORK & FAMILY 513

conflict’ designed by Carlson et al. (2000). Specifically, four items tapped into work-to-
family interference (e.g. ‘Today, I had to miss family activities due to the amount of
time I had to spend on my work’) and four items tapped into family-to-work interference
(e.g. ‘Due to stress at home, I was preoccupied today with family matters at work’). The
parents were asked to indicate on a Likert scale with five points (1 = completely disagree
to 5 = completely agree) to what extent they agreed with each statement.

Parental emotional exhaustion

For the measurement of feelings of emotional exhaustion in taking care of children, we
used six items of the emotional exhaustion subscale of the Parental Burnout Assessment
(Roskam et al., 2018). To avoid over-questioning the parents and to reduce the risk of
missing data, we limited the number of items from this scale to 6 (instead of 9). This selec-
tion was made on the basis of the items’ suitability for a diary format and previous ana-
lyses on data from the International Investigation of Parental Burnout (IIPB study; N = 453;
Schrooyen et al., 2019). An example item is ‘Today, I felt completely run down by my role
as a parent’. The items were answered on the 5-point Likert scale, where 1 stands for ‘not
at all’ and 5 stands for ‘completely agree’.

Controlling parenting
Controlling parenting practices were measured with two well-validated questionnaires
tapping into both internally and externally controlling parenting. As some parents have
more than one child in the family, parents were specifically instructed to think about
the target child (toddler child who is in the first year of kindergarten) when filling out
the questionnaires. To assess internally controlling (i.e. psychologically controlling) par-
enting, we relied on a modified version (i.e. a selection of 4 items, Van der Kaap-
Deeder et al., 2017) of the Psychological Control Scale – Youth Self-Report (PCS-YSR) by
Barber (1996). An example item is: ‘Today, I was less kind to my son/daughter when s/
he didn’t see things my way’. To assess external control (i.e. overreactivity), we relied
on a modified version (i.e. selection of 3 items) of the overreactivity subscale of the Par-
enting Scale (Arnold et al., 1993). An example item is ‘Today, I raised my voice or I yelled
when my child misbehaved’. Both questionnaires use a Likert scale with five points from 1
(not at all true) to 5 (completely true). Internally and externally controlling parenting prac-
tices were computed into one single composite score by averaging the subscale scores
(mean r = .59, p < .001, range across days .57–.63).

Plan of analysis
The main hypotheses were investigated using multilevel structural equation modeling
(MSEM) in MPlus 8.3 (Muthén & Muthén, 2010). In the multilevel structural equation mod-
eling analyses, the measurement occasions (5 days) represented the within-person level
which were nested within participants, representing the between-person level (Preacher
et al., 2010). The Level 1 variables were person-mean centered, whereas the Level 2 vari-
ables were grand-mean centered. In these multilevel analyses, the total variance is
decomposed into variance at the between-person level and variance at the within-
person level. Variance at the between-person level refers to variance around the mean
514 K. BRENNING ET AL.

of all persons over the five days. Variance at the within-person level refers to variance
around the mean of one person over the five days.
With regard to missing data, there were 12.83% missing values in total. Off all parents, 8
reported only two days, 5 reported only three days, 11 reported 4 days and 101 parents
reported all five days. Analysis of missing values with Little’s (1988) test showed that data
were missing completely at random (Little’s MCAR-test, χ 2(452) = 487,713; p = .12). There-
fore, the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm was used for data imputation. This
algorithm is a robust method to obtain maximum likelihood estimates (Schafer, 1997).
First, intraclass correlations for all study variables were calculated to examine whether
multilevel modeling was appropriate. Second, structural multilevel models tested the
direct associations between work–family conflict and controlling parenting both at the
between- and within-person level. When associations are significant at the between-
person level, they indicate that parents who experience more work–family conflict relative
to other parents, also report more controlling parenting. When associations are significant
at the within-person level, they indicate that when there is an increase in work–family
conflict across the days, there will be also an increase in controlling parenting within
parents. Third, we investigate parental emotional exhaustion as a possible underlying
mechanism linking work–family conflict with parenting. This model examines the inter-
vening role of exhaustion simultaneously at the within- and between-person level. In a
last step, multigroup analyses investigated whether the investigated model differed
depending on parents’ gender.

Results
Descriptive statistics and preliminary analyses
Table 1 shows reliability estimates, means, and standard deviations of all study variables,
as well as the correlations between the variables at the between- and within-person level.
At the between-person level, work–family conflict (both WFI and FWI) was positively
related to emotional exhaustion and controlling parenting practices. Further, parental
emotional exhaustion was significantly positively related to control. At the within
person level, work–family conflict (both WFI and FWI) was not significantly related to con-
trolling parenting. However, work–family conflict (both WFI and FWI) and emotional
exhaustion were significantly positively related. Further, parental emotional exhaustion
was significantly positively related to controlling parenting.
To determine whether there were associations between the background variables (age
and gender of both parent and child, marital status, number of children, working hours
per week) and the study variables, MANCOVAs were conducted on the aggregated
daily level variables. There were no overall multivariate effects for age of the child
(Wilks’ λ = .99; F(3, 94) = 0.39; p = .762, η 2 = .012), age of the parent (Wilks’ λ = .99; F(3,
94) = 0.34; p = .799, η 2 = .011), gender of the parent (Wilks’ λ = .97; F(3, 94) = 0.83; p
= .481, η 2 = .026), number of children (Wilks’ λ = .97; F(3, 94) = 0.90; p = .444, η 2 = .028),
working hours per week (Wilks’ λ = .95; F(3, 94) = 0.48; p = .178, η 2 = .051), nor gender of
the child (Wilks’ λ = .97; F(3, 94) = 0.83; p = .481, η 2 = .026). A significant association was
found for marital status (Wilks’ λ = .91; F(3, 94) = 3.10; p = .031, η 2 = .090), with parents
reporting more work–family conflict in married (M = 1.83, SD = 0.52) as compared to
 COMMUNITY, WORK & FAMILY 515

divorced families (M = 1.43, SD = 0.34). Based on these analyses, marital status was
included in all subsequent models tested (yet not shown in the tables for reasons of
parsimony).

Primary analyses
Intraclass correlations (ICCs) shed light on the proportion of the total variance that is due
to between- and within-person variation, with the ICC reflecting the percentage of var-
iance located at the between-person level. The ICC was .60 for controlling parenting,
.68 for parental emotional exhaustion, .39 for WFI and .52 for FWI. This means that respect-
ively 60%, 68%, 39% and 52% of the variance in controlling parenting, emotional exhaus-
tion, WFI and FWI reflected differences between persons. The remaining variance is
situated at the within-person level. Specifically, respectively 40%, 32%, 61% and 48% of
the variance in controlling parenting, emotional exhaustion, WFI and FWI reflects
within-person differences. Given the substantial variation in the variables at the within-
person level (above .05; Preacher et al., 2010), the data were suitable for multilevel
modeling.
The models for the primary analyses were built step by step. In the first step, the main
effect models (controlling parenting predicted by WFI and FWI) were tested at both the
between and within person level. In step two, indirect models were tested in which
emotional exhaustion played an intervening role in the relation between work–family
conflict (both WFI and FWI) and parenting.

Direct effect models

The results of the direct effects models can be found in Table 2. At the between-person
level, the association between work–family conflict (both WFI and FWI) and controlling
parenting turned out to be significant (b = .24, SE = 0.10, p = .019 and b = .60, SE = 0.10,
p = .000 for WFI and FWI, respectively). At the within-person level, the association
between work–family conflict (both WFI and FWI) and controlling parenting turned to
be non-significant (b = −.03, SE = 0.04, p = .399 and b = .07, SE = 0.05, p = .166 for WFI
and FWI, respectively).

Indirect models
The results of the indirect models can be found in Table 3. The intervening role of parental
emotional exhaustion was tested in an integrated model, including only indirect associ-
ations between work–family conflict (both WFI and FWI) and controlling parenting

Table 2. Effects of work-to-family interference (WFI) and family-to-work interference (FWI) on

controlling parenting.
Controlling parenting Controlling parenting
Fixed effects Between person-level Within-person level Between person-level Within-person level
Overall Intercept 1.51 (.23)*** 2.06 (.06)*** 1.09 (.17)*** 1.54 (.05)***
WFI .24 (.10)** −.03 (.04)
FWI .60 (.10)*** .07 (.05)
Random effects
Intercept, u0 .34 (.06)*** .55 (.05)*** .22 (.04)*** .21 (.03)***
Residual, e0 .24 (.04)*** .17 (.02)*** .18 (.04)*** .17 (.02)***
516 K. BRENNING ET AL.

Table 3. Effects of work–family conflict (WFI and FWI) on controlling parenting via parental emotional
exhaustion (EE).
Between-person Within-person Between-person Within-person
level B [95% CI] level B [95% CI] level B [95% CI] level B [95% CI]
Direct effects
WFI to EE .53 (.10)*** [0.37, 0.69] .10 (.04)* [0.03, 0.16]
FWI to EE .59 (.16)*** [0.33, 0.86] .18 (.06)** [0.08, 0.28]
EE to control .53 (.06)*** [0.42, 0.63] .36 (.07)*** [0.24, 0.48] .53 (.06)*** [0.43, 0.64] .36 (.07)*** [0.24, 0.47]
Indirect effects
WFI via EE .28 (.06)*** [0.18, 0.38] .03 (.02)* [0.01, 0.06]
FWI via EE .32 (.11)** [0.14, 0.49] .06 (.03)** [0.02, 0.11]
Note: *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

through emotional exhaustion. These indirect associations were tested both at the
between- and within-person level at the same time. The significance of indirect effects
was tested using bootstrapped confidence intervals in MPlus (MacKinnon et al., 2002).
With regard to the WFI model, model fit was adequate [χ 2(2) = 4.75, p = 0.09; RMSEA
= .05; CFI = 0.97; SRMR = .05] and adding direct paths did not affect the fit of the
model. The results show that WFI was positively associated with parental emotional
exhaustion both at the between (b = .53, SE = 0.10, p = .000) and within-person level (b
= .10, SE = 0.04, p = .012). Emotional exhaustion, in turn, was significantly related to con-
trolling parenting at the between (b = .53, SE = 0.06, p = .000) and within-person level (b
= .36, SE = 0.07, p = .000). The indirect association was also significant at the between (b
= .28, SE = 0.06, p = .000) and within-person level (b = .03, SE = 0.02, p = .022).
With regard to the FWI model, model fit was adequate FWI [χ 2(2) = 9.98, p = 0.01;
RMSEA = .09; CFI = .90; SRMR = .00] and adding direct paths did not affect the fit of the
model. The results show that FWI was positively associated with parental emotional
exhaustion both at the between (b = .59, SE = 0.16, p = .000) and within-person level (b
= .18, SE = 0.06, p = .003). Emotional exhaustion, in turn, was significantly related to con-
trolling parenting at the between (b = .53, SE = 0.06, p = .000) and within-person level (b
= .36, SE = 0.07, p = .000). The indirect association was also significant at the between (b
= .32, SE = 0.11, p = .003) and within-person level (b = .06, SE = 0.03, p = .013).

Multigroup analyses
Multigroup analyses were performed to test whether the associations in this study would
depend on the gender of the parent. A multigroup analysis tested the moderating role of
parental gender in the final indirect models investigating the role of parental emotional
exhaustion in associations between work–family conflict (both WFI and FWI) and control-
ling parenting practices. The analyses revealed that parental gender did not moderate
associations (Δχ 2 = 2.98, df = 3, p > .05; Δχ 2 = 3.74, df = 3, p > .05 for WFI and FWI,
respectively)

Discussion
Work–family conflict has been identified as a risk factor for parental mental health pro-
blems (Greenhaus et al., 2006). Although relatively less research was conducted on the
role of work–family conflict in parenting, the few available studies indicate a link with
 COMMUNITY, WORK & FAMILY 517

disturbed parent–child interactions and parenting more specifically (e.g. Cooklin et al.,
2016). Yet, research on this link between work–family conflict and parenting is still
scarce and the psychological processes underlying this link remain unclear. Recent
research increasingly aims to identify parental burnout as an emotional parental state
related to both work–family conflict (Van Bakel et al., 2018) and parenting (Mikolajczak
et al., 2019). The main aim of the present study was to investigate the role of parental
emotional exhaustion (i.e. the core component of parental burnout) as an underlying
mechanism in the link between work–family conflict (both WFI and FWI) and parenting
(i.e. controlling parenting practices). Herein, we focused on both within-person and
between-person differences. Although most parents would probably testify that one
day is not the other, the results of the present study’s multilevel analyses provided
support that a great deal of the variance in parental work–family conflict, emotional
exhaustion and controlling parenting is also situated at the within-person level. Next to
considerable inter-individual differences between parents, parents report considerable
variability in their experiences of work–family conflict, feelings of emotional exhaustion
and in their ways of interacting with their children around their own average approach.
Our findings are consistent with previous studies that examined daily variation in
work–family conflict (e.g. Allen & Martin, 2017), parental burnout (e.g. Gillis & Roskam,
2020) and parenting (e.g. Aunola et al., 2017).

Work–family conflict and parenting

At the between-person level, there was a link between work–family conflict (both WFI and
FWI) and controlling parenting. Parents who generally experienced more work–family
conflict reported more controlling parenting practices compared to parents who experi-
enced less work–family conflict. At the within-person level, work–family conflict (both WFI
and FWI) was not significantly related to controlling parenting practices. Specifically, day-
to-day parental experiences of work–family conflict did not directly translate into more
controlling parenting practices that same day.
Although general levels of work–family conflict in families did show a link with more
dysfunctional parenting, daily fluctuations in work–family conflict were not directly
reflected in more controlling parenting practices that same day. Possibly, a longer and
more chronic threat to the parents’ energy is needed to engage in maladaptive parenting
practices, than daily ups and downs in experienced work–family conflict. Therefore, the
time frame of the present diary study could be taken into consideration. Possibly, the
current time frame (i.e. five-day diary study) was not enough to uncover all within-
person associations between the study’s constructs. Further, other processes could also
be at work that prevent daily fluctuations in work–family conflict from translating into
dysfunctional parenting. As there was only an indirect effect but no direct effect
between daily fluctuations in work–family conflict and controlling parenting this strongly
raises the question for investigating moderating factors, such as emotion regulation and
co-parenting. Further, to disentangle the link between work–family conflict and parent-
ing, a more fine-grained measurement of work–family conflict exploring the potential
differential impact depending on its dimension (i.e. time-based vs. strain-based work–
family conflict), next to its direction (WFI vs. FWI), could be included. Thereby, the original
full-version of the multidimensional measure of work–family conflict (Carlson et al., 2000)
518 K. BRENNING ET AL.

should be used. Nonetheless, preliminary analyses with the current study’s eight-item
version (see Appendix, Table A1) show equal correlations independent of dimension.

Parental emotional exhaustion as an underlying process

The intervening role of parental emotional exhaustion was investigated with regard to the
link between work–family conflict and controlling parenting practices. Presumably, work–
family conflict experiences may erode parents’ energy levels, thereby leading parents to
become more self-centered and less attuned to what is going on for their children. The
indirect association between work–family conflict and parental control via parental
emotional exhaustion was significant both at the between- and within-person level.
Indeed, general work–family conflict as well as daily ups and downs in work–family
conflict experiences are related to respectively general and daily reported feelings of par-
ental emotional exhaustion which, in turn, relate to more controlling parenting practices.
In a final step, moderation analyses indicated that the associations between work–
family conflict (both WFI and FWI) and parenting via feelings of emotional exhaustion
emerged regardless of parents’ gender. This generalization of the current study results
across parental gender suggests that the detrimental role of work–family conflict and par-
ental exhaustion holds across mothers and fathers. This finding is interesting as it reflects
an important societal shift in work–family organization, where fathers have become more
important actors in the work–family balance (Townsend, 2002).

Limitations
The results of this study need to be interpreted in the context of some limitations. A first
limitation is the sole reliance on parent reports. All measurements used in this study were
based on self-report, which may have caused shared method variance and an overestima-
tion of some of the associations. Therefore, future research should include other types of
measurements and rely on multiple informants, which seems particularly important for
the assessment of parenting. Parenting practices are probably to a large extent an
issue of parental perception. Future research would do well to incorporate additional
informants (e.g. external observations, partner reports or child report in case of an
older stage of life). Such research would allow one to examine to what extent parents’
perception of their own parenting practices is grounded in ‘reality’ and to what extent
it is affected by parents’ own well-being (e.g. by feelings of parental emotional
exhaustion).
Second, the study is limited in terms of generalizability. Although data collection of the
current study aimed a broad target group, not all parents were willing to participate.
Unfortunately, we do not have information on the current study’s participation rate
and possible selection effects. For example, parents who participated may have been
those with the lowest emotional exhaustion scores (or the reverse may also be true),
which may have led to an over- or under-estimation of the relationships. Further, as
the current results were obtained in a rather homogeneous sample of parents who are
mostly married or living together and have a relatively high socioeconomic status,
future research should try to replicate and refine the findings in a more heterogeneous
sample. Future research may also focus on families from a more diverse cultural
 COMMUNITY, WORK & FAMILY 519

context, children from a different developmental period (e.g. adolescence), and families
with parents and children at risk for problem behavior. Further, child temperament
may form a potentially important variable related to the present study variables as we
might, for example, expect feelings of parental emotional exhaustion to be worse in
those who have a child with more difficult temperamental traits.
A third limitation is that parents rated their experiences of work–family conflict and
emotional exhaustion at the same time in the day as their parenting practices. Hence,
we do not know whether parents’ experiences of work–family conflict and emotional
exhaustion actually preceded parental behavior. Further longitudinal research is
needed to investigate the link between work–family conflict, emotional exhaustion and
parenting practices. Poorer parenting practices may, for example, lead parents to feel
conflicted and exhausted. More conclusive evidence regarding the direction of effects
could be obtained by separating the assessment of parenthood experiences and parent-
ing in the day. Preliminary analyses exploring the direction of effects in the current study
(see Appendix, Tables A2–A4) indicated that work–family conflict on one day indeed pre-
dicts parenting the next day. However, diary studies should focus on more days (e.g. 14-
day diary study instead of the current 5-day measurement) to properly model cross-
lagged effects. Alternatively, in an experimental study, parents could be asked to set rea-
listic (versus perfectionistic) goals when it comes to work and family life during the day to
examine whether goal conflict would impact their controlling parenting practices.
Further, future research with a broader focus on the concept of parental burnout
would be interesting. The present study relied on a short 6-item version of the Parental
Burnout Inventory, thereby only including the emotional exhaustion subscale. Possibly
other facets of parental burnout such as ‘emotional distancing’ or ‘reduced personal
self-efficacy’ are also important when it comes to work–family conflict and parenting.
Therefore, it is important to replicate the current study findings with the original full
version of the questionnaire (23-item Parental Burnout Assessment, Roskam et al., 2018).
Finally, future research could also focus on more adaptive pathways linking work–
family conflict to parenting, with work–family enrichment being related to for instance
more responsive, structured and autonomy-supportive parenting practices via the
process of parental psychological availability (Van der Kaap-Deeder et al., 2019).

Conclusion and implications for practice

The present study provided evidence for a link between work–family conflict (both WFI
and FWI) and controlling parenting via parental emotional exhaustion, both at the level
of between- and within-person differences. The present study’s results highlight the
importance of balancing work and family life, with work–family conflict contributing to
feelings of parental emotional exhaustion which in turn related to more controlling par-
enting practices. On days when parents experience more work–family conflict, they often
lack energy to stay attuned to the needs of the child, and may be more likely to ignore,
minimize, or even deny the child’s perspective and to engage in controlling parenting
practices. This research is not only important from a fundamental point of view, but
also from a clinical perspective. Parenting interventions show that parents can be
taught to educate less controlling and more autonomy support (Nowak & Heinrichs,
2008). Such interventions, targeting the behavior of parents, can be reinforced by also
520 K. BRENNING ET AL.

addressing the sources of that behavior, namely work–family conflict and parental
emotional exhaustion.
Current research on the psychosocial safety climate at work (Dollard, 2012; Mansour &
Tremblay, 2018), interventions for parental burnout (Brianda et al., 2020) and recent interven-
tion research on work–family conflict (Gordon et al., 2018) may be promising in this regard.
Thereby, next to traditional top-down job redesign strategies, in which management is
encouraged to optimize job demands and resources, alternative job crafting strategies
approach employees as active creators of their own job (Grant & Parker, 2009), including
several interesting guidelines (e.g. Gordon et al., 2018). Specifically, three dimensions are
argued to be important to promote job crafting and reduce exhaustion, that is, (1) seeking
challenges (e.g. undertaking new assignments), (2) seeking resources (e.g. asking for feed-
back), and (3) reducing demands (e.g. checking emails only at certain times during the
day). Future intervention research could investigate whether suchlike intervention programs
also pay off when it comes to parental well-being (e.g. feelings of parental emotional exhaus-
tion) and the parent–child relationship (e.g. controlling parenting practices).

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Funding
This study was funded by Research Foundation Flanders [FWO.3EO.2015.0012.01].

Notes on contributors
Katrijn Brenning is a professor at the Department of Developmental, Personality, and Social Psychol-
ogy at Ghent University, Belgium. She received her PhD in clinical psychology in 2012 from Ghent
University, Belgium. Her research interests include emotion regulation, child and parental mental
health, early parent-child interactions and parenting.
Elien Mabbe is a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Developmental, Personality, and
Social Psychology at Ghent University, Belgium. She received her PhD in clinical psychology in
2018 from Ghent University, Belgium. Her research interests include temperament, personality, par-
enting and parenting interventions.
Bart Soenens is a full professor at the Department of Developmental, Personality, and Social Psychol-
ogy at Ghent University, Belgium. He received his PhD in developmental psychology in 2006 from the
Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. His research interests include self-determination, autonomy,
parent-adolescent relationships, parental psychological control, and identity development.

ORCID
Bart Soenens http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1581-3656

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Appendix

Table A1. Correlational analyses on the potential differential impact of work–family conflict,
depending on its dimension (i.e. time-based vs. strain-based).
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
1. Work–Family Conflict
2. Time-based WFI .88***
3. Time-based FWI .73*** .33***
4. Strain-based WFI .44*** .43*** .25***
5. Strain-based FWI .39*** .22*** .45*** .41***
6. Emotional Exhaustion .41*** .32*** .36*** .27*** .23***
7. Control .25*** .11** .35*** .17*** .31*** .55***
8. Chaos .25*** .13** .30*** .12** .17*** .33*** .36***
Note: WFI = work-to-family interference; FWI = family-to-work interference.
**p < .01. ***p < .001.

Table A2. Effects of work–family conflict on day t on controlling parenting on day t + 1, controlling
for parenting on day t.
Controlling parenting on day t + 1
Fixed effects Within-person level
Overall Intercept .59 (.59)
Work–family conflict on day t .11 (.05)*
Parenting on day t .61 (.30)*
Random effects
intercept, u0 .00 (.08)
residual, e0 .22 (.06)***
Note: *p < .05. ***p < .001.

Table A3. Effects of work–family conflict on day t on parental emotional exhaustion on day t + 1,
controlling for emotional exhaustion on day t.
Parental emotional exhaustion on day t + 1
Fixed effects Within-person level
Overall Intercept .40 (.05)***
Work–family conflict on day t .07 (.08)
Emotional exhaustion on day t .67 (.06)***
Random effects
intercept, u0 .00 (.02)
residual, e0 .29 (.05)***
Note: ***p < .001.

Table A4. Effects of parental emotional exhaustion on day t on controlling parenting on day t + 1,
controlling for controlling parenting on day t.
Controlling parenting on day t + 1
Fixed effects Within-person level
Overall Intercept .69 (.99)
Emotional exhaustion on day t .58 (.65)
Controlling Parenting on day t .11 (.08)
Random effects
intercept, u0 .00 (.17)
residual, e0 .22 (.120)