The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among mothers' rearing stress, their sense of self-efficacy as parents and their rearing behaviors and thereby, better understand pre-school children's social competence.For this purpose, the ...
The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among mothers' rearing stress, their sense of self-efficacy as parents and their rearing behaviors and thereby, better understand pre-school children's social competence.For this purpose, the researcher sampled 245 pre-schoolers aged 5 (133 boys and 112 girls) from 4 private kindergartens in Inchon and their mothers. The researcher asked the kindergarten teachers to measure their pre-schoolers' social competence by using the simple version of LaFreniere and Dumas' (1996) 'Social Competence and Behavior Evaluation' (SCBE) translated by Kwon Yeon-hee (2003), while encouraging the children to rate their peers' social competence. On the other hand, in order to measure mothers' rearing stress, the researcher translated, modified and adapted to our conditions 'Parenting Stress Index/Short Form 〔PSI/SF〕(Abidin, 1990). Mothers' sense of self-efficacy as parents was measured with 'Parenting Sense of Competence' (PSOC) developed by Gibaud-Wallston and Wanderssman (1978) and modified and complemented by Shin Sook-jae (1997). On the other hand, the researcher measured mothers' rearing behaviors with a scale invented by Park Joo-hee (2000). The data collected were analyzed by using the descriptive statistics of each variable and Pearson's product-moment correlation coefficients for each gender group of children.The results of this study can be summarized as follows;First, pre-school children's social competence was found to be correlated with mothers' all rearing stress factors but pain, and such correlations differed between boys and girls.Second, mothers' sense of self-efficacy as parents was correlated with pre-school children's social competence only in case of girls.Third, mothers' rearing behaviors were correlated with pre-school children's social competence in overall terms, but such correlations differed between boys and girls.In conclusions, mothers' rearing stress, sense of self-efficacy as parents and rearing behaviors were correlated in overall terms with their pre-school children's social competence, while such correlations differed more or less between girls and boys. Therefore, in order to enhance pre-schoolers' social competence, it is deemed necessary to provide the mothers with an environment less stressful to them, help them enhance their sense of self-efficacy as parents and encourage them to be engaged in such positive rearing behaviors as affection, encouragement and setting of limits in their ordinary interactions with their pre-school children.