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Self‐care and deviance in elementary school‐age children
Author(s) -
Pettine Ann,
Rosén Lee A.
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
journal of clinical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.124
H-Index - 119
eISSN - 1097-4679
pISSN - 0021-9762
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1097-4679(199808)54:5<629::aid-jclp9>3.0.co;2-f
Subject(s) - deviance (statistics) , psychology , developmental psychology , sibling , self care , clinical psychology , child care , medicine , pediatrics , health care , statistics , mathematics , economics , economic growth
Fourth‐, fifth‐ and sixth‐grade students were surveyed to investigate whether self‐care was related to self‐reports of behavioral or attitudinal deviance, liking for school, or both. The Child Self‐Care Measure (CSCM), a multiscale self‐report instrument, measured self‐care as a developmental task with four major dimensions: temporal, physical, structural, and psychological. Self‐care in general was not linked to deviance. However, increases in psychological self‐care were strongly correlated with reductions in children's liking for school. Additionally, children in self‐care who cared for younger siblings for more than a year reported more deviant behaviors than those without responsibility for younger siblings; children in the care of older siblings less than 16 years old for more than 4 years reported more tolerance for deviance than peers in self‐care without older sibling caregivers. Findings support earlier speculations that children in self‐care may not be developmentally ready to take responsibility for elementary school‐aged siblings. Results also indicated that although girls in self‐care manifest problems earlier than boys, long term self‐care may be more problematic for boys than girls. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Clin Psychol 54: 629–643, 1998.