Participants were 101 adults whose children engaged in remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Among them, 100 (99%) were Chinese, and one (1%) was non-Chinese. The participants’ ages ranged from 30 to 60 years old (average age = 44.75). Regarding participants’ relationships with their children, the majority were mothers (N= 50, 49.5%) and 26 were fathers (25.7%). Other relationships accounted for 24.8% (N = 25). Most parents had a college education or above (N = 87; 86.1%), with nearly half having a bachelor’s degree (N = 49; 48.5%). Most parents (N = 90; 89.1%) were married, while only a few were single (N = 3; 3.0%), cohabiting (N = 2; 2.0%), or separated (N = 5; 5.0%). The majority of parents had full-time jobs (N = 83; 82.2%), with a smaller portion being homemakers (N = 6; 5.9%), part-time workers (N = 1; 1.0%), retirees (N = 5; 5.0%), or others. Most parents reported having only one child living with them and attending school (N = 83; 82.2%), with a few having two children (N = 11; 10.9%), or three (N = 1; 1%). The age of the first child ranged from 6 to 29 years old (M = 14.68), with most between 10 and 23 years old (N = 85; 84.2%). Regarding children’s grade levels, 30 participants (29.7%) reported that their children were in college, accounting for the largest proportion, 28 participants (28.9%) reported that their children were in elementary school, 18 (17.8%) in middle school, and 12 (11.9%) in high school. All participants’ children (100%) engaged in remote learning during the pandemic, with 94.1% (N = 95) of the children doing so based on school requirements. Additionally, 79.2% (N = 80) of the children also engaged in additional remote learning outside the classroom. During remote learning, 68.3% (N = 69) of families had only one parent/guardian caring for the child, 26.7% (N = 27) had two adults, and 5% (N = 5) had three or more adults.

Participants were primarily recruited through advertisements on WeChat, a multi-functional social media platform for the Chinese. The original survey questionnaire was in English, but since it targeted Chinese participants, it was translated into Chinese. To ensure linguistic equivalence between the two versions, back-translation was used. Participants were required to sign an informed consent form indicating their willingness to participate in the study after reading a brief description of the study, participants’ confidentiality, and voluntariness. The questionnaire took approximately 6-8 minutes to complete.

Communication Resilience Processes Scale (CRPS). The measurement for resilience referred to the 32-item Communication Resilience Processes Scale developed by Wilson et al. (2021). To minimize participant fatigue and ensure they complete the questionnaire seriously, the study selected 11 questions, focusing on three primary resilience measures: “adjusting old norms,” “creating new norms,” and “focusing on constructive action while downplaying negative emotions.” Since this study revolved around parent-child communication, some questions were modified to fit this context, such as “I continued to participate in my child’s learning process.” The scale used a 5-point Likert Scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree). A secondary factor analysis showed that the three factors loaded on one superordinate factor, which accounted for 70% of the variance. The Cronbach’s alpha was .876, indicating acceptable internal consistency among items.

Attitude Toward Remote Learning. This section was designed by the researchers using a 5-point Likert Scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree) with eight questions. Based on existing studies on factors influencing parents’ acceptance of remote education, questions were designed to assess whether remote education is useful, its relationship with educational quality, students’ learning opportunities during remote learning, and comparisons between remote learning and traditional schooling. All the items loaded on one factor, which accounts for 55% of the variance. The Cronbach’s alpha was .882, indicating acceptable internal consistency.

Parent-Child Relationships. The Parent-Child Relationship scale (Driscoll & Pianta, 2011) was adapted to measure parents’ perceptions of the parent-child relationship. Six questions measuring the intimacy of the relationship were selected, including statements such as “I have a close and warm relationship with my child,” “My child values our relationship,” and “If upset, my child would seek comfort from me.” The scale used a 5-point Likert Scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree). All the items loaded on one factor, which accounts for 59% of the variance. The Cronbach’s alpha was .849, indicating acceptable internal consistency.

Parent-Child Communication. The scale developed by Barnes and Olson (1985) was adapted to measure parent-child communication. Eight questions were selected to measure the openness of parent-child communication, including statements such as “I can discuss my thoughts and opinions with my child without feeling restrained or embarrassed,” “I find it easy to discuss problems with my child,” and “when I asked questions, I get honest answers from my child.” The scale used a 5-point Likert Scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree). All the items loaded on one factor, which accounts for 58% of the variance. The Cronbach’s alpha was .895, indicating acceptable internal consistency among the items.

Psychological Wellbeing. Questions for assessing parents’ mental health were derived from Joseph and Lewis’s (1998) study on depression and well-being, measuring participants’ “sense of well-being,” “disappointment,” “sense of accomplishment,” and “motivation.” This section contained six questions using a 5-point Likert Scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree). All the items loaded on one factor, which accounts for 61% of the variance. The Cronbach’s alpha was .791, indicating acceptable consistency among the questions.

A one-way ANOVA analysis was performed to generate descriptive statistics for mothers, fathers, and other family members (e.g., grandparents) on all of the dependent variables, which are summarized in Table 1. Only the openness of parent-child communication varied significantly across the three groups, F(2, 98) = 3.25, p = .04, with fathers engaging in significantly less open communication with the children (M = 3.42, SD = .72) than mothers (M = 3.78, SD = .62) and other family members (M = 3.70, SD = .67).

Drawing on the Communication Theory of Resilience, the study found that, although resilience did not directly impact mental health, it had a significant effect on openness in parent-child communication and intimacy of parent-child relationships. The research also revealed that parent-child communication and parent-child relationships during the pandemic are key sources of mental well-being for parents with school-age children. These results not only help validate the Communication Theory of Resilience by providing empirical evidence for the indirect impact of resilience on mental health, but also confirms the significant mediating role of family communication and parent-child relationships in this effect. The study therefore contributes to the mental health literature by demonstrating the intricate relationships between resilience, communication, and psychological wellbeing.

Despite extensive research on resilience, traditional studies often define resilience as a stable personality trait. Buzzanell’s (2010) Communication Theory of Resilience (CTR) challenges this conventional definition by examining how people use verbal and non-verbal resources to rebuild normalcy after difficulty, loss, trauma, and disaster, thereby enhancing psychological resilience. In this theoretical framework, communication plays a central role in constructing resilience. CTR identifies five processes that contribute to resilience development: establishing new normalcy, reinforcing identity, maintaining and utilizing communication networks, constructing alternative logic, and focusing on constructive action while downplaying negative emotions. Many studies on CTR are qualitative, using interviews or focus groups to understand how people use communication and cooperation to rebuild new stories, rituals, organizational logic, identity, emotions, and cognitive frameworks, thus integrating new realities into daily life (e.g., Agarwal & Buzzanell, 2015). Using the Communication Resilience Processes Scale (CRPS) developed by Wilson et al. (2021), this study measured two primary resilience development processes—“maintaining old normalcy and establishing new normalcy” and “focusing on constructive action while downplaying negative emotions”—partially validating the scale’s reliability and providing empirical evidence for CTR’s applicability and practicality in real life. When resilience is no longer just an abstract concept or an inherent trait, but can be cultivated and enhanced through communication processes, it gains greater theoretical and practical significance.

Secondly, this study is significant for understanding how people respond to large-scale catastrophic events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, and the resulting consequences. Psychological resilience is not just a quality that allows individuals to maintain a positive mindset and adaptability when facing life’s challenges and stresses—it is a dynamic social process. This study finds that resilience plays a crucial role in family relationships and communication, making it a useful strategy for coping with crises. Parents with strong resilience development skills are more adaptable when facing difficulties, demonstrating greater openness in family communication and fostering more harmonious and intimate family relationships. During the pandemic, when family members were isolated from the outside world but spent more time with each other, parental resilience played a significant role in coping with stress and maintaining family and personal mental health. Consistent with existing literature on confirmation theory, effective parent-child communication is vital for building positive relationships between parents and children, with notable impacts on emotional regulation and parental mental health. Studying parents’ mental states during the pandemic, with school-age children engaged in remote learning, helps us understand the impact of the pandemic on family and individual mental health, providing insights for future public health crises and the need for mental health support.

While theoretically, one would expect more resilient and adaptable parents to be more accepting of remote learning during the pandemic, this study’s results show no significant impact of resilience on parents’ attitudes toward online courses. This might be due to the small sample size of 101 participants; with a larger sample, this relationship might become significant. Furthermore, research has shown that numerous factors influence parents’ attitudes toward remote education, including technical barriers, lack of training and technical support, insufficient communication with teachers and professionals, children’s lack of independence and initiative, children’s increased screen time, attention deficits, unmet social and emotional needs, and parents’ difficulty in balancing work and family conflicts. The study’s results indicate that having strong communication resilience alone is not sufficient to overcome these varied obstacles affecting parents’ attitudes toward remote education.

Nevertheless, this study finds a significant positive association between parents’ attitudes toward online courses and family communication and relationships. When parents maintain a positive attitude toward online education with reduced negative biases, they are more proactive in family communication, adopting more open strategies to listen to and understand their children’s challenges, leading to a more positive and intimate family relationship. Conversely, when parents have negative attitudes toward online education, their cognitive and emotional biases might overshadow parent-child communication, resulting in more closed and less supportive interactions, impacting parent-child relationships negatively.

Additionally, the results indicate that parents’ attitudes toward remote education have a marginally significant positive impact on their mental health. A larger sample might reveal more significant associations. The mediation analysis showed that with parent-child communication and relationships as mediating variables, parents’ attitudes toward remote education had a significant indirect positive impact on their mental health. Open communication and maintaining good family relationships allow parents’ positive attitudes toward remote education to help children face social isolation and the challenges of remote education, promoting positive communication and reducing stress; when family relationships improve, parents’ wellbeing is also enhanced. Given the increasing prominence of remote education, the study’s results have implications for both educational institutions and parents. Specifically, policymakers, schools, and teachers should be more mindful of the role of parents in the diffusion of educational technologies; they can help parents develop more confidence and positive attitudes toward remote education through timely and effective communication, technical support and training especially for young children and their parents, and technological innovations that provide a more engaging and independent educational experience for students.

These findings offer interesting perspectives for future research. Since this study focused only on resilience and attitudes toward remote education from parents’ perspectives, future research can examine the processes from the perspective of school-age children, investigating whether parental communication plays a dominant role in (re)constructing their resilience and coping with unexpected challenges. The current understanding can also be expanded by investigating other factors that may influence parents’ attitudes toward remote education, such as socioeconomic status, technological literacy, and support systems for a more nuanced understanding. As shown by the study’s findings, parent-child relationships and communication significantly affect parents’ mental health. Incorporating qualitative methods, such as interviews or focus groups, can provide deeper insights into the lived experiences of parents and children, as well as the complexities of their resilience communication strategies. Future studies can also explore a greater range of resilience development processes, particularly using a longitudinal approach, to establish stronger causal relationships, track changes in resilience communication and mental health over time, and provide more comprehensive evidence-based suggestions on improving resilience development.

While the study’s results have important theoretical and practical significance, limitations necessitate caution when interpreting the findings. Firstly, the questionnaire was distributed via China’s social media platform WeChat, potentially affecting sample and data representativeness. The sample might have distinct geographical features or consist of more educated individuals with stable income, rather than representing all regions and populations. Additionally, researchers relied on convenience sampling, with recruitment notices widely distributed to parents of university students, leading to nearly 30% of the survey’s participants having children in university. Given the higher independence of university students, parental attitudes toward remote education may have lower impact. Future research should use a more diverse and representative sample to minimize biases in the findings.

Secondly, the study collected only 101 valid responses, which is a relatively small sample size and may limit the generalizability of the findings. Larger-scale data collection in future studies can generate more robust findings and increase representativeness. Additionally, the study did not consider factors such as children’s age and grade level, parents’ income, and employment status, which might impact the study’s key variables. Parents of younger children face more challenges and obstacles, generally resulting in more negative attitudes toward remote education (Dong et al., 2020). Future studies could delve into how parents of younger children cope with the challenges and build resilience.

Third, the study only focused on the “openness” of parent-child communication and the “intimacy” of parent-child relationship. Future research should focus on broader aspects of parent-child communication, such as the use of confirmation versus disconfirmation strategies (Dailey, 2010), as well as more dimensions of parent-child relationships, such as supportiveness, control, and conflict (Pierce, 1994), to further validate the findings and shed light on the role of family communication in the (re)construction of resilience.

Fourth, while the study found no impact of resilience on attitudes toward remote education, it only measured two types of resilience building, “establishing new normalcy” and “focusing on constructive action while downplaying negative emotions.” Other resilience development processes, like “maintaining and utilizing communication networks” and “constructing alternative logic,” might have a significant impact on parents’ attitudes toward remote education, given that technical barriers, insufficient teacher communication, and potential negative thoughts under stress are significant obstacles. Future research could measure a broader range of resilience development processes to understand better how parents cope with the challenges posed by remote education.

Finally, the study employed simple and multiple regression analyses, as well as bootstrapping methods to assess the hypotheses, largely due to the small sample size. Future research that has a larger sample should consider using alternative analytical methods, such as structural equation modelling analysis, to assess all of the hypothesized relationships at once, both to advance our theoretical understanding of the mechanism through which resilience influences mental health through positive communication and relationships, and for greater methodological rigor.

The sudden outbreak of COVID-19 brought remote learning into Chinese people’s lives with unprecedented speed and scope, significantly altering many families’ lifestyles and educational approaches. By examining the impact of students’ remote learning on parents’ mental health, the study helps us understand the important roles of parents’ resilience, their attitude toward remote education, parent-child communication and relationships, offering specific coping strategies for potential similar disruptive situations in the future, such as building a new normal and foregrounding positive actions over negative emotions.