On March 10, 2020, Italy went into lockdown due to the Coronavirus Disease-19 (COVID-19) pandemic. The World Health Organization highlighted how the lockdown had negative consequences on psychological well-being, especially for children. The present study aimed to investigate parental correlates of children’s emotion regulation during the COVID-19 lockdown. Within the Social Cognitive Theory framework, a path model in which parenting self-efficacy and parental regulatory emotional self-efficacy mediated the relationship between parents’ psychological distress and both children’s emotional regulation, and children’s lability/negativity, was investigated. A total of 277 parents of children aged from 6 to 13 years completed an online survey that assessed their psychological distress, regulatory emotional self-efficacy, and parenting self-efficacy. Parents reported also children’s emotional regulation and lability/negativity. A structural equation model (SEM) using MPLUS 8.3 was tested. Results showed that the hypothesized model exhibited excellent fit, chi-square (83) = 140.40, p < 0.01, RMSEA = 0.05, CFI = 0.97, TLI = 0.96, SRMR = 0.04. The influences of parents’ psychological distress and parents’ regulatory emotional self-efficacy on children’s emotional regulation and lability/negativity were mediated by parenting self-efficacy. The mediation model was invariant across children’s biological sex and age, and geographical residence area (high risk vs. low risk for COVID-19). Results suggested how parents’ beliefs to be competent in managing parental tasks might be a protective factor for their children’s emotional well-being. Implications for intervention programs are discussed.

This cross-sectional study examined 804 adolescents, boys and girls, aged from 14 to 19 years, attending different types of high schools in the northwest of Italy; the questionnaire “Me and My Health” (Bonino, 1996 Bonino, S. 1996. Questionario: Io e la mia salute, Torino, , Italy: Regione Piemonte, Assessorato alla Sanità. [Google Scholar] ) was used to collect data. The main goals were: (i) to investigate the relationship between active and passive forms of sexual harassment and violence and the relationship between pornography (reading magazines and viewing films or videos) and unwanted sex among adolescents; (ii) to explore the differences in these relationships with respect to gender and age; and (iii) to investigate the factors (pornography, gender and age) that are most likely to promote unwanted sex. The findings showed that active and passive sexual violence and unwanted sex and pornography were correlated. However, reading pornographic material was more strongly linked to active sexual violence, while being a boy was found to be protective against passive sexual violence. Nevertheless, some effects of viewing pornographic films on passive unwanted sex were also found, especially among girls.

University dropout represents a serious problem across the world. Past research has suggested the merits of studying both additive and multiplicative effects among the variables that affect the intention to drop out. In the present study, we tested the potential moderating effect of friendships at university, on both the association between self-regulated learning self-efficacy and intention to drop out and the associations between different motivations for attending university and intention to drop out. A sample of 404 Italian university students (M^age = 21.83; SD = 2.37) completed an online questionnaire. The outcomes showed that having friends at university was a protective factor in the relationship between self-regulated learning self-efficacy and intention to drop out. Students with a high number of university friends and low self-efficacy were less likely to intend to drop out than students with few university friends and low self-efficacy. Thus, having friends at university appears to protect students from developing the intention to drop out.