The Investigation of Children's Persistent and Reactive Behavior With Respect to Parenting Attitudes

Abstract

The aim of the current study is to investigate the contributions of maternal attitudes to children’s persistent and reactive behaviors. The study sample is made up of 202 preschoolers aged 48-72 months and their mothers. A demographic form was used to collect data on children’s age, gender and mothers’ working status. Persistence and Reactivity Subdimensions of the The Short Temperament Scale for Children and Parenting Attitude Scale for maternal attitudes were used for the data collection. Both forms were completed by the mothers. An independent sample t-test, a Pearson Product-Moment Correlation and multiple regression were used to test the data collected from the mothers. The results showed that girls, 6-year-olds (60-72 months) and children with working mothers were more persistent compared to boys, 5-year-olds and children with unemployed mothers, respectively. The findings indicated a negative and significant relationship between persistence and overprotective parenting attitudes and a positive and significant relationship between reactivity and permissive and overprotective parenting attitudes. Parenting attitudes explained %5 and %7 of the variation in children’s persistent and reactive behavior, respectively. Overprotective and permissive parenting attitudes significantly predicted persistence and reactivity, respectively.