The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of mothers' neuroticism, parenting stress and young children's stress on internal and external problem behaviors. The subjects of this study consisted of 236 mothers, who had children 5-7 aged...
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of mothers' neuroticism, parenting stress and young children's stress on internal and external problem behaviors. The subjects of this study consisted of 236 mothers, who had children 5-7 aged attending 7 child-care centers located in Cheongju city and Cheongwon Gun. The data were collected by mothers who responded questionnaires and analyzed by frequency, percentage, Primary factor analysis, Cronbach'α, t-test, F-test, Scheffe test and pearson correlation using SPSS 12.0 program. The theoretical model was tested by path analysis using AMOS 5.0 program.
The results of this study were as follows:
First, this study showed statistically significant differences of mother's parenting stress, young children's stress and young children's externalizing problem behaviors across children's age, sex and mothers education level. Boys rather than girls had more external problem behaviors and mothers of young children aged 5 reported more stress than mothers of children aged 7. Younger children felt more stress than older children. Mothers with a college degree reported more parenting stress than mothers without a college degree. Futhermore, young children of mothers with a college degree felt more stress and had more externalizing problem behaviors.
Second, mother's neuroticism, parenting stress and young children's stress directly influenced on young children's internalizing problem behaviors. The effect of mother's neuroticism on young children's internalizing problem behaviors was mediated by mother's parenting stress and young children's stress.
Third, Mother's parenting stress influenced young children's externalizing problem behaviors directly but mother's neuroticism and young children's stress did not. The effect of mother's neuroticism on young children's externalizing problem behaviors was mediated by parenting stress.