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The quality of mothers’ solutions to child‐rearing problems: what difference does setting internal or external to the family make?
Author(s) -
Pridham Karen F.,
Pascoe John
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
journal of advanced nursing
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.948
H-Index - 155
eISSN - 1365-2648
pISSN - 0309-2402
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-2648.1999.01066.x
Subject(s) - perspective (graphical) , developmental psychology , psychology , quality (philosophy) , child rearing , significant difference , medicine , mathematics , philosophy , geometry , epistemology
The quality of mothers’ solutions to child‐rearing problems: what difference does setting internal or external to the family make? In this study we examined the difference the setting of a child‐rearing problem, either internal or external to the family, made for mothers’ generation of solutions likely to assist a child’s development of problem‐solving competencies. In addition, the direct effect of a mother’s personal resources (age, education, number of children parented, and verbal ability) and the direct and mediating effect of the extent to which a mother took the child’s perspective on her generation of assistive solutions were explored. Adult mothers ( n = 128) of children ranging in age from 1 month to 18 years were interviewed by telephone concerning eight hypothetical child‐rearing problems. Mothers generated a greater proportion of assistive solutions and took the child’s perspective more often for external problems than for internal problems. For internal problems, a mother’s verbal ability made a significant contribution to the proportion of assistive solutions generated. For external problems, number of children made a significant negative contribution. For external problems, perspective taking had a mediating effect on the relationship of number of children with the proportion of assistive solutions generated. The nature of a mother’s perspective taking and the function that it has in solution generation for child‐rearing problems merit exploration.