The moderating effects of a child's self-regulation skills in the relationship between a child’s temperament and the behaviour of the parents

ABSTRACT

This study investigated the moderating effect of the self-regulation skills of children on their temperamental traits and on the mother's parenting behaviour. The random sampling method was used to obtain the study's participants: 253 children attending pre-school and their mothers. Research data was collected using the ‘The child behaviour list short form’ ‘Alabama Parenting Questionnaire’ ‘Self-regulation assessment’. The results reveal that diligent control and self-regulation skills directly influence positive parental behaviour and that the relationship between diligent control and positive behaviour is differentiated depending on the self-regulating capacity of a child. Second, this study determined that negative affect temperament and self-regulation skills directly influence negative parental behaviour and that the relationship between negative affect and negative parental behaviour differs in accordance with a child's self-regulation skills.

KEYWORDS:

• Self regulation
• child’s temperament
• behaviour of the parents

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sema Büyüktaşkapu Soydan

Sema Büyüktaşkapu Soydan is an assistant professor at Karatay University in the department of Child Development and her research interests include science, environmental, literacy education in preschool and behavior problems and self-regulation in early childhood.

Nihal Akalin

Nihal Akalın is an doctoral candidate at Hacettepe University and she has been working as lecturer at Niğde Ömer Halis Demir University in the department of Child Development and her research interests include drama in preschool and social development in early childhood.