The relationship among mother’s parental attitude, child temperament and mother-child play behaviors

Abstract

The aim of the study was to examine the relationship among mothers' parental attitudes, children's temperament, and mother-child play behaviors. To observe the relationship between child temperament and mother's parental attitude in mother child play, an online invitation was made to the mothers who have children between ages 3 and 6. After reaching 840 mothers and children, the mothers filled in an online questionnaire including items of the two scales: Parental Attitude Scale (Demir & Şendil, 2008) and Short Temperament Scale for Children-Parent Form (Yağmurlu & Sanson, 2009). Upon completion, the results of the scales were analyzed, and six pairs were formed by computing the mother's parental attitude (i.e., authoritative, authoritarian, and overprotective) and the children's temperaments (i.e., difficult and easy) scores. After forming the pairs, selected toys were sent to the pairs, and mother-child play observations were made by making a video-call in Zoom ©. Play observations were encoded and converted into numerical data by using a play cycle coding table (Gol-Guven, 2006; King &Newstead, 2020). Each play cycle was analyzed by identifying play roles, play frames, and annihilation of play. As a result, statistically significant relationships were found between parental attitudes and child temperaments. These findings were discussed in relation to the play roles and play frames of each mother-child pair.