Supplementary materials

In China, where parental involvement in children’s homework is both culturally normative and highly intensive, gaining a nuanced understanding of the parent–child interactions is crucial for improving the quality of homework involvement. However, most extant research overlooked the moment-to-moment changes and reciprocal influences during homework interactions. To address this gap, the present study intensively tracked 62 families with primary school students in Grades 1 to 3 (Mage = 7.83 years, 56% female) in mainland China, collecting 438 audio-recorded parent–child homework assistance interactions over a two-week period. Using dynamic structural equation modeling (DSEM), we examined the moment-to-moment dyadic associations between parental behaviors (warmth, intrusiveness, limit-setting, and knowledge explanation) and children’s behaviors (involvement, compliance, and withdrawal) during homework-related interactions. Additionally, we investigated the moderate effects of parental personality and child temperament. Results revealed that parent-child interactions during homework followed immediate reciprocal mechanisms: Parental warmth enhanced children's involvement, prompting more parents’ knowledge explanations, which however reduced children’s involvement. Parental intrusiveness led to child withdrawal, decreasing parents’ knowledge explanations, which however fostered greater children’s involvement. Furthermore, parental personality and child temperament moderated these patterns: parents who were more agreeable were less inclined to provide explanations following children’s compliance and less likely to set limits after children's involvement; children with higher attentional control are more likely to exhibit compliant behaviors in response to parental warmth and knowledge-explaining behaviors. These findings provide novel insights into the momentary dynamics of homework interactions, providing insights for developing tailored, evidence-based parenting interventions, particularly for Chinese families.