Risk Factors for Children’s Socio-emotional Development in Different Family Structures

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Hur, Eun Hye
Language:English
Published: The Ohio State University / OhioLINK 2014
Subjects:
Online Access:http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1397482147
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record_format oai_dc
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language English
sources NDLTD
topic Families and Family Life
Early Childhood Education
spellingShingle Families and Family Life
Early Childhood Education
Hur, Eun Hye
Risk Factors for Children’s Socio-emotional Development in Different Family Structures
author Hur, Eun Hye
author_facet Hur, Eun Hye
author_sort Hur, Eun Hye
title Risk Factors for Children’s Socio-emotional Development in Different Family Structures
title_short Risk Factors for Children’s Socio-emotional Development in Different Family Structures
title_full Risk Factors for Children’s Socio-emotional Development in Different Family Structures
title_fullStr Risk Factors for Children’s Socio-emotional Development in Different Family Structures
title_full_unstemmed Risk Factors for Children’s Socio-emotional Development in Different Family Structures
title_sort risk factors for children’s socio-emotional development in different family structures
publisher The Ohio State University / OhioLINK
publishDate 2014
url http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1397482147
work_keys_str_mv AT hureunhye riskfactorsforchildrenx2019ssocioemotionaldevelopmentindifferentfamilystructures
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spelling ndltd-OhioLink-oai-etd.ohiolink.edu-osu13974821472021-08-03T06:23:49Z Risk Factors for Children’s Socio-emotional Development in Different Family Structures Hur, Eun Hye Families and Family Life Early Childhood Education The purpose of this study was to examine the associations between family structure, family socio-economic resources, father-child contact, parental resources, and young children’s socio-emotional competence. The current study tested three hypotheses: 1) children’s socio-emotional competence may differ by family structure, 2) the impact of family structure on children’s socio-emotional development may be mediated by family economic resources and father-contact, and 3) parental resources such as mothers’ depression and parenting stress may mediate and moderate the association between family structures and children’s socio-emotional competence. Acknowledging the importance of young children’s socio-emotional competence as a predictor for their school-readiness, the current study has examined three important socio-emotional competences: behavioral self-regulation, relationship skills, and learning-related self-regulatory development. The sample consisted of randomly selected 341 children, and their teacher- and mother-report as well as direct assessments of socio-emotional competences were examined using structural equation modeling. The results revealed that children’s socio-emotional competence differ by family structure, generally favoring children in married families against children from all other family structures. Children in single families were reported to be at particular risk in preschool settings. Results also revealed possible positive outcomes for children in divorced families, developing resilience over hardship in their family relationship instability and dissolution, which may result in better socio-emotional competence. The mediating effects of family economic resources were found only between family structure and children’s behavioral self-regulation, whereas the mediating effects of father-contact was found only between family structure and relationship skills and learning-related self-regulation. The results may suggest that behavioral self-regulation, which includes cognitive and behavioral control abilities may be more influenced by economic resources at home, whereas relationship and learning-related regulatory skills that are necessary in classroom settings may be more influenced by the stability children may experience by the presence of fathers. Father-child contact further mediated the impact of family structures and mothers’ psychological well-being, in a way that mothers whose children see their fathers daily had better psychological well-being. Mothers’ psychological well-being in turn was only associated with their own report of children’s outcome, indicating that mothers’ psychological status may impact their view of their children. Finally, one moderating effect was found: the mediating effect of family structure on children’s behavioral self-regulation through family economic resources was dependent on parenting stress. The impact of economic resources on children’s behavioral self-regulation was stronger when mothers had higher parenting stress. The results suggest that parenting stress may have a positive effect on parents’ use of economic resources for children’s behavioral self-regulation. The results suggest the importance of examining multiple dimensions of socio-emotional competence of children in various family structures, especially single and divorced families. Also, prevention programs for children’s socio-emotional development may take mothers’ psychological well-being into consideration because mothers who are highly stressed and depressed may perceive and treat their children more negatively. Finally, parenting stress, which has been considered negatively may have in fact, have a positive effect on children’s behavioral self-regulation. Future studies may explore this potential positive effect in relation to mothers’ level of education. 2014-06-24 English text The Ohio State University / OhioLINK http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1397482147 http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1397482147 unrestricted This thesis or dissertation is protected by copyright: some rights reserved. It is licensed for use under a Creative Commons license. Specific terms and permissions are available from this document's record in the OhioLINK ETD Center.