Parents' Coping Strategies for their School Children's Issues: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

Coping strategies are mechanisms to avoid or lessen danger, damage, and loss or to alleviate distress from stressful situations and environments. This Systematic Literature Review (SLR) research objectives were to examine and summarize coping strategies parents use with children attending school when they face issues. This review will provide comprehensive and well-structured perspectives for scholars interested in studying coping strategies usage and their effectiveness in future research. Related articles and studies were retrieved from Scopus, Science Direct, and Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) databases. This review has identified 27 articles for SLR after performing quality approval according to PRISMA 2020 protocol. The thematic analysis data were classified into ten emerging themes: (1) problem-focused and active coping, (2) help-seeking, support-seeking or social support, (3) disengaged, avoidance, escaping, denial or self-distraction, (4) self-blame, (5) spiritual or religiosity, (6) positive reappraisal or reframing, (7) venting, (8) humor, (9) acceptance, and (10) substance use. Moreover, findings from this SLR suggest that coping strategies are crucial when parents face stressful issues or incidents regarding their school children since education is very important to them. This review will offer valuable insights into the use and effectiveness of coping strategies for researchers and scholars. It will provide a well-structured perspective for future studies on this topic.