The interrelationships between parental wisdom, psychological resilience, and their children’s emotional competence: a network analysis in the family context

Introduction This cross-sectional study investigated the structural relationships among parental wisdom, psychological resilience, and parent-perceived children’s emotional competence using network analysis within Saudi Arabian families ( N = 252 parents: 95 fathers, 157 mothers; ages 20–69 years). Methods Participants were recruited through multi-channel sampling (digital platforms, community centers, snowball referrals) across multiple Saudi regions over 3 months. Parents represented diverse marital durations (49.2% married 11–20 years) and reported on 252 children (62.3% males; 42.5% aged 10–15 years). Validated Arabic measures included the 3D Wisdom Scale, Resilience Evaluation Scale, and Parental Assessment Questionnaire for Children’s Emotional Competence (McDonald’s ω = 0.728–0.924). Results A GLASSO network estimation identified seven nodes across three communities (wisdom, resilience, emotional competence), exhibiting moderate edge density (0.667) and small-world properties (SWI = 1.028). Self-confidence and self-efficacy showed the highest strength centrality (1.008 and 0.952, respectively), suggesting their potential importance within the network structure. The self-confidence–self-efficacy connection demonstrated the strongest association (weight = 0.60), while affective wisdom appeared to function as a bridge linking parental resources to children’s emotional competence. Stability analyses indicated acceptable robustness for strength centrality but limited overall stability (CS-coefficient = 5.2%). Accordingly, findings related to betweenness centrality and bridge roles should be interpreted with caution and considered preliminary pending replication with larger samples. Discussion Key limitations include the cross-sectional design, which prevents causal inference, reliance on parental proxy reports, which may introduce bias, and cultural specificity, which constrains generalizability. Nevertheless, the findings offer meaningful implications for Vision 2030–aligned family policy development, including: (a) prioritizing self-efficacy enhancement as a potentially high-leverage intervention target; (b) integrating resilience- and wisdom-based training to promote family cohesion; and (c) implementing culturally adapted parenting programs that emphasize affective wisdom and Islamic principles (ra . hmah, tawakkul). Overall, the results contribute to the growing application of network psychometrics in Arab family contexts while highlighting the need for further validation and replication.