The objective of the present research is to examine the relationship between fathers' rearing behaviors, playfulness, and young children's playfulness. The subjects of the research were 207 young children aged 4 or 5, and their fathers. The research u...
The objective of the present research is to examine the relationship between fathers' rearing behaviors, playfulness, and young children's playfulness. The subjects of the research were 207 young children aged 4 or 5, and their fathers. The research utilized IPBI (Father form) [Iowa Parent Behavior Inventory (Father form)] constructed by Pease et al. to measure the fathers' rearing behaviors, and PSA (Playfulness Scale for Adults) constructed by Schaefer and Greenberg (1997) to measure the fathers' playfulness. In addition, it adopted the Playfulness Scale for Children developed by Barnett (1990) to measure the children's playfulness. For data analysis, the research employed frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation, One-way ANOVA, and Scheffe verification, Pearson's Correlations, and Multiple Regression Analysis using SPSSWIN and SAS programs.
The major results of the present research are as follows.
First, fathers' most frequent rearing behavior was limit setting, and their most frequent characteristic of playfulness was joyous and an optimistic disposition.
On the other hand, young children's playfulness was expressed mostly by humors and joyfulness.
Second, fathers' rearing behaviors showed significant differences according to the father's age, the father's academic qualifications, the mother's academic qualifications and the family type, and fathers' playfulness did not show statistically significant differences. In addition, young boys' playfulness appeared to be higher than young girls, as a whole.
Third, a relatively high correlation was found between fathers' playfulness and their rearing behaviors. Especially, fathers' love for fun appeared to be in a positive relation with all sub-areas of fathers' playfulness. In case the child was a boy, the more fathers loved fun, humor and wit, the more they tended to involve themselves in rearing their children, and to guide their children rationally; and the more fathers loved humor, wit, fun, and optimism, the more they tended to use limit setting. On the other hand, in case the child was a girl, the more fathers loved fun, the more they tended to involve themselves in rearing their children and to guide their children rationally.
Fourth, a relatively low correlation was found between fathers' rearing behaviors and young children's playfulness. In addition, in case the child was a girl, fathers' expression of friendliness appeared to have a significant effect on young children's cognitive spontaneity and sense of humor.
Fifth, a moderately significant correlation was found between fathers' playfulness and young children's playfulness. Especially when the child was a boy, fathers' love for fun and optimism appeared to have a significant effect on young children's physical spontaneity and sense of humor. On the other hand, in case the child was a girl, fathers' love for fun appeared to have a significant effect on young children's sense of humor, expression of joy and cognitive spontaneity, except their physical spontaneity.