The Relationships between Mothers' Child-Rearing Behavior, Children's Attachment, and Social Adjustment The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between mothers' child-rearing behavior, children's attachment, and social adjustmen...
The Relationships between Mothers' Child-Rearing Behavior, Children's Attachment, and Social Adjustment The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between mothers' child-rearing behavior, children's attachment, and social adjustment.
The subjects for this study were 292 mother-child pairs. The children were 5th and 6th graders from three different public elementary schools in Busan.
Mothers' child-rearing behavior was assessed by applying the Child-Rearing Behavior Questionnaire developed by Park(1995). Children's attachment and social adjustment were assessed by applying the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment Revised Version(IPPA-R) and the Social Adjustment Scale by Yoon(1999), respectively.
The data were analyzed by Cronbach a, Pearsori s correlation, Multiple Regression Analysis, and Path Analysis.
The four major findings of this study were as follows:
First, in the relationship between mothers' child-rearing behavior and children's attachment, children felt higher security of attachment to their mothers when the 'Warmth-Acceptance' of mothers' child-rearing behavior was higher.
Second, in the relationship between children's attachment and social adjustment, children displayed higher levels of social adjustment when they felt higher security of attachment to their mothers.
Third, in the relationship between mothers' child-rearing behavior and children's social adjustment, when mothers' child-rearing behavior had higher levels of 'Warmth-Acceptance', children showed higher levels of social adjustment including family, non-family member, self, and emotional adjustment. And when the mother child rearing behavior showed higher levels of 'Rejection-Restriction', children displayed lower levels of family and emotional adjustment.
Finally, the 'Warmth-Acceptance' of mothers' child-rearing behavior and children's security of attachment to their mothers had a positive effect on children's social adjustment. Furthermore, mothers' child-rearing behavior directly affected their children's self adjustment. Through children's attachment, mothers' child-rearing behavior indirectly affected children's social adjustment, which includes family, non-family member, self, and emotional adjustment. Thus, attachment played an intermediate role between mothers' child-rearing behavior and children's social adjustment.