Abstract
The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between four to five year old children’s social competence levels and their ability to communicate with their mothers. Social competence has an important role in developing positive relationships in children's lives. One of the most important factors in the development of social competence in children is the communication they have with their mothers. In the study, one of the general survey models, “relational survey model” was used. The study group consisted of 323 children attending public kindergartens in Istanbul. General Information Form, Social Competence and Behavior Assessment Scale and Parent-Child Communication Assessment Tool were used as data collection tools. In the analysis of the data, descriptive statistics were calculated via examining the data distribution. In order to determine the relationships between preschool children's mothers’ communication and social competence, Pearson correlation coefficient was calculated. At the end of the study, it was observed that children’s social competence average was high, and the mean of inward and outward oriented problems were close and low. Besides, there was a negative and high-level correlation between total social competence scores and inward oriented and outward oriented problems. Considering mothers’ communication with their children, there was a positive and high-level relationship between the empathy and speech dimensions. While there was no significant relationship between the total scores of children's social competence levels and their relationship with their mothers, some significant relationships were determined regarding sub-dimensions. These results of the present study show that mothers’ communication skills such as empathy, speaking, listening and conveying messages are effective in increasing children's social competence skills and reduce behavioral problems.
Highlights
Childhood is an important period for children to acquire basic social skills that enable them to become socially competent individuals
The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between four to five year old children’s social competence levels and their ability to communicate with their mothers
The findings are presented in three parts: the first part is including the results regarding social competence and communication status of mothers and children according to some demographic characteristics, the second one is the findings related to children's social competence and communication levels; and the last part is the findings related to relationship between children's social competence levels and communication with their mothers
Summary
Childhood is an important period for children to acquire basic social skills that enable them to become socially competent individuals. Many basic social-emotional skills and traits include the following features: the ability to express and manage emotions, to move away from egocentrism, to understand events and phenomena from someone else's perspective, empathy, self-confidence, and to develop and support relationships with others. Social and emotional competence measure the ability to understand, maintain, manage, and express social and emotional aspects of life (Cohen, 2001). Social competence is associated with children's well-being, self-awareness, self-control, communication, and decision-making skills. These skills support children's adaptation to the environment they live in, increase their capacity to develop positive relationships with adults and peers, focus on challenging tasks, strive them to accomplish these tasks and support them in using emotions during communication (Ashdown & Bernard, 2012; Dere Ciftci, 2018)
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