Parents’ attachment to their children and their level of interest in them in predicting children’s self-concepts

ABSTRACT

It is believed that parental behaviours play a critical role in the development of self-concept. Recent research studies have shown that parents’ romantic attachments affect both their parental behaviours and their children’s behaviours. The purpose of this research is to examine predictive levels of parents’ level of dimensions of attachment (attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance) together with their participation in the development of their children’s self-concept. In this research, which examines parents’ level of interest towards their children, The Scale of the Mother's and Father’s level of Interest towards their Children were used to examine the level of the children's self-concept through the Demoulin Self-Concept Developmental Scale for Children in order to obtain the parents’ dimensions of attachment in the Experiences in Close Relationships-Revised II Scale. It was seen that both types of dimensions of attachment on the mothers’ and on the fathers’ affected the children’s self-concept negatively.

KEYWORDS:

• Self-concept
• parental attachment
• the interest level towards the child
• the preschool period

Acknowledgement

This study was presented as an oral presentation at the 5th International Congress on Curriculum and Instruction (ICCI – 2017) in Mugla, Turkey on 26–28 October 2017.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dr. Seda Ata graduated in Preschool Education doctorate program of Hacettepe University in 2014. I worked as a research assistant Department of Early Childhood Education at Hacettepe University between 2010–2014. Since 2014 Dr. Ata has been working at Department of Early Childhood Education at Mugla Sitki Kocman University as teaching straff. Dr. Ata’s main research interests are attachment, classroom management and parenting issues in early childhood.

Sevcan Yağan Güder graduated in Preschool Education doctorate program of Hacettepe University in 2014. Dr. Yagan Guder worked as a research assistant at Anadolu University preschool education department between 2006–2014 and worked as teaching staff at Okan University Child Development department between 2014–2016. Since 2016 Dr. Yağan Güder has been working at Kultur University Preschool Education Department as teaching staff. Dr. Yağan Güder interests are gender, values, ethic issues in early childhood.