Objective: To understand the social adaptation in the association between attitude towards parents with academic anxiety among middle school students in Chongqing, so as to provide a basis and thinking method for theoretical framework of family education and youth development. Methods: Convenient and clustering sampling method was used to select 34 097 middle school students aged 13-18 years during September to November 2023. All the participants were investigated with self designed questionnaire, Social Adaptability Scale and Mental Health Test. The mediating effect of social adaptability in the relationship between students attitudes towards their parents academic anxiety was evaluated by using Logistic regression analysis and structural equation model. Results: The proportion of high school students in Chongqing with academic anxiety was 48.80%. Academic anxiety differed significantly by sex, academic grade, attitude towards parents, and social adaptability ( χ 2=948.45, 173.92, 537.51, 4 770.04, P < 0.01). The results of Logistic regression analysis showed that positive attitudes towards parents were positively correlated with moderate academic anxiety ( OR=1.13, 95%CI =1.08-1.18) and high academic anxiety ( OR=1.14, 95%CI =1.09-1.19) ( P < 0.05 ). The results of the mediation effect analysis showed that positive attitude of middle school students towards their parents negatively predicted academic anxiety ( β= -0.12 , P <0.01), but when social adaptation ability was used as a control variable, the original negative relationship between the positive attitude towards parents and academic anxiety of middle school students changed ( β=0.02, P <0.01), and social adaptation ability played a masking effect in the relationship. The social adaptation ability of middle school students played a mediating role in the relationship between their positive attitudes towards their parents and academic anxiety, with a mediating effect of -0.63. Conclusions The attitude of middle school students towards their parents will directly affect academic anxiety, and also have an indirect impact on academic anxiety through social adaptability, but there is a cover effect. Pay more attention to family education and actively focus on students social adaptability can contribute to improve the mental health level of adolescents.