Discussion Question

Journal Plus Education, ISSN: 1842-077X, E-ISSN (online) 2068 – 1151 Vol Special issue (2014), pp. 374-378 ,

374

ASPECTS OF EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT INSIDE

PARENT-CHILD RELATIONSHIP

Alina TURCULEȚ 1 , Cristina TULBURE

2

1 University of Bucharest, Romania

2 Transilvania University of Brașov, Romania

ABSTRACT

The relationship between parents and children is defining in order to assure

the harmonious development of children’s personality, the parent being the first

educator who significantly draws the emotional and relational trajectory of the future

adult. Our study presents a psycho-pedagogical experiment which was unfolded along

a school year, upon a target population of 20 pre-school children and 20 parents. The

main objective of the study was the implementation of an improvement program

intended to improve parents’ and children’s level of emotional development. The

implemented formative intervention centered around presenting some strategies of

emotional education, the importance of awareness and control of emotions, identifying

desirable behaviors of children and modalities to punish the inadequate behaviors. The

results of our study reflect the influence the parent’s emotional development has upon

the child’s emotional development. All these are in agreement with those belonging to

the international research which proves the deep and lasting impact of the parents’

emotional aptitudes upon the child’s emotional life. The scores obtained by children

are the result of the concomitant action of the formative intervention of parents and

teachers, and that confirms once more the necessity for deliberate and convergent

actions of the three main factors: family, school, community.

KEYWORDS: emotional development, parent-child relationship, strategies of

emotional education.

1. INTRODUCTION

The 21 st century competences transcend the usual patterns and claim for

a new approach: that of the transferability of acquisitions. The attitude,

understood in terms of autonomy and responsibility, tends to become a self-

sustained competence. The necessity of developing socio-emotional

competences in those educated is imperative. The introduction of personal

development classes within the formal curriculum, at the level of the curricular

cycle of fundamental acquisitions, is the expression of acknowledging the

importance of emotional alphabetization in the circumstances of observing the

general schedule of human development (Gardner, 2005; Gardner, Hatch, 1989;

Goleman, 2001). This is an attitude that could make the difference, and the

intervention upon the students’ attitude depends on the parent’s attitude towards

Journal Plus Education, ISSN: 1842-077X, E-ISSN (online) 2068 – 1151 Vol Special issue (2014), pp. 374-378 ,

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the change (Gottman, Hooven, Katz, 1994; Huessman, 1987; Thomas, Chess,

1988, Saarni, 1990; Brazelton, 1992; Elias, Tobias, Friedlander, 2007; Segal,

1997). The influence of parental styles upon the emotional development of their

own children may be major, and the parents’ training needs from the point of

view of their emotional abilities are certain. In order to illustrate the importance

of emotional education inside the parent-child relationship and to underline the

necessity to implement some emotional alphabetization programs destined to

parents we have decided to accomplish a psycho-pedagogical experiment.

2. OBJECTIVES AND HYPOTHESIS OF THE STUDY

This investigating procedure is aiming at three objectives: to identify the

level of emotional development of children and their parents; to implement an

improvement program destined to ameliorate the level of emotional

development of parents; to evaluate the impact of formative interventions upon

the emotional development of parents and children. By following those

objectives, we have proposed to test the hypothesis according to which, if

during the activities with parents, we implement an improvement program

based on emotional development strategies, significant ameliorations will be

produced both for the emotional development of parents and children.

3. METHOD 3.1. Procedure

The research was unfolded over a period of a school year and covered

the phases of a psycho-pedagogical experiment: The pretest phase was oriented

toward establishing the level of emotional development coefficients of parents

and of children. The experimental intervention phase had in view the

implementation of a formative educational program addressed to parents and

aiming at ameliorating their emotional development coefficients. Inside this

educational program we centered on presenting strategies of emotional

education, underlying the importance of emotion awareness and control, and

identifying the desirable behaviors of children and punishing methods for

inadequate behaviors. The posttest phase was accomplished in the end of the

experimental intervention and had in view to re-apply the evaluation

instruments regarding the emotional development of parents and children; also,

it aimed at identifying the significant differences registered between the initial

level and the final level of the dependent variables (intra subject design).

3.2. Participants

There are two groups of participants involved in our investigation: a

group is represented by children attending the school year 2011-2012, in the

pre-school group at a kindergarten of Brașov and the other group is represented

by their parents. The group of pre-school children include 20 children with ages

between 4 and 7 (M=6.72, SD=0.70). With the view of setting up the target

Journal Plus Education, ISSN: 1842-077X, E-ISSN (online) 2068 – 1151 Vol Special issue (2014), pp. 374-378 ,

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population made of the pre-school children’s parents, we took as a guide the

criterion of the parent who most looks after the child, so the one who has a

greater educational influence. The investigated adult subjects have ages ranging

between 26 and 58 years old (M=34.45, SD=6.26).

3.3. Measures

Following our objective to identify the emotional development of

parents and children we used two categories of methods and instruments of

investigation. The investigation tool used to determine the parents’ emotional

development values consists in a test which was adapted after a similar

instrument of Roco and presents ten scripts, each provided with four variants of

answer (Roco, 2004), from which the subject picks one. The research method

used to identify the children’s emotional development values was the

observation, and as a registration instrument for the results of the observation

we chose to use the observation grid which was developed based on the

Emotional Intelligence identification test – the version for children (Roco,

2004). The observation grid includes also ten scripts (like the test used for

parents) adapted to answer the concrete realities of the group of pre-school

children and, in the same time, to respect the initial versions of the scripts, in

order to keep the equivalence between the scripts included in the test for

children and those included in the adult version. In this way, we ensure that the

data collected from parents and children are comparable.

4. RESULTS

Data analysis reveals the existence of some significant differences

between the scores obtained by the adult subjects (t = - 3.36, p < 0.05), but

especially between the scores got by the child subjects during the pretest and

posttest phases (t = - 17.28, p < 0.01). As a result of the experimental

intervention, the level of emotional development coefficient witnesses a

significant increase, leaving from the average value of 74.5 (in pretest) and

reaching the value of 95 (in posttest) for the adult subjects and from the average

value 76 (in pretest) to 152.25 (in posttest) for the child subjects (Table 1). The

value of the significance threshold indicates the fact that chances for the change

in the emotional development coefficient level to be a consequence of hazard

and not of the experimental intervention are lower than 5%. Thus, from the intra

subject design perspective, we are in the position to reject the null hypothesis

and to accept the hypothesis according to which, as a result of the experimental

intervention, improvements appear at the level of emotional development for

the subjects included in the experimental batch. We think that the methods and

techniques of emotional education have some positive effects upon the level of

emotional development of the subjects of investigation. On the whole, at the

level of the intra subject design, the results of the posttest phase confirm the

Journal Plus Education, ISSN: 1842-077X, E-ISSN (online) 2068 – 1151 Vol Special issue (2014), pp. 374-378 ,

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hypothesis of our research by showing that through the implementation of the

formative experimental intervention, significant improvements are produced on

the level of emotional development both for adult and especially for child

subjects.

Table 1. Means difference for the experimental groups in pretest and posttest Variables Experimental

phases

N Mean SD t p

The emotional

development of parents

PRETEST 20 74,5 23,72

3,36

p <

0,05 POSTTEST 20 95 35,57

The emotional

development of children

PRETEST 20 76 27,65

17,28

p <

0,01 POSTTEST 20 152,25 24,41

The scores obtained by the child subjects come to confirm the necessity

to introduce improvement programs beginning with very young ages, when,

owing to the malleability of forming psychical structures, the results registered

as a result of implementing such programs are both conclusive and pertinent.

As for the adult subjects, the results, though not spectacular, generally reveals

the fact that those are willing to learn modern education methods and

techniques, especially those they missed in their own formation. Also, we need

to mention the aspect regarding the scores obtained by child subjects, as those

are the result of concomitant action of formative interventions of parents and

teachers.

5. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

The results of our study reflect the influence the emotional intelligence

of the parent has upon the child’s emotional development. These are in

agreement with the findings of the international research that proves the deep

and lasting impact of the parents’ emotional aptitudes upon the emotional life of

their children (Goleman, 2001). The parent-child relationship is defining for the

harmonious development of the children’s personality, as the parent is the first

educator who significantly draws the emotional and relational trajectory of the

future adult. The scores obtained by the child subjects come to confirm the

necessity to introduce improving programs in order to observe the emotional

development schedule, which, implemented at early ages, have remarkable

results. As for the adult subjects, the results, though not spectacular, generally

reveal the fact that the adults are willing to learn modern education methods and

techniques, especially those they missed in their own formation. We also need

to mention that the scores obtained by the child subjects are the result of the

concomitant action of the formative intervention of parents and teachers, and

Journal Plus Education, ISSN: 1842-077X, E-ISSN (online) 2068 – 1151 Vol Special issue (2014), pp. 374-378 ,

378

that confirms once more the necessity for deliberate and convergent actions

from the three main factors: family, school, community.

REFERENCES

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[3] Hamburg, D. (1992). Today’s Children: Creating a Future for a Generation in

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[4] Gardner, H., (2005). Mintea disciplinată. Educaţia pe care o merită orice

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[7] Gottman, J., Hooven, C., & Katz, L. (1994). The Family as a Metaemotion

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[8] Huesman, W. (1987). Intellectual Function and Agrression. The Journal of

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[9] Roco, M. (2004). Creativitate şi inteligenţă emoţională. Iaşi: Polirom.

[10] Saarni, C. (1990). Emotional Competence: How Emotions and

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[11] Segal, J. (1997). Dezvoltarea inteligenţei emoţionale. Bucureşti: Teora.

[12] Solomon, D. (1988). Enhancing Children’s Prosocial Behavior in the

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[13] Thomas, A., & Chess, S.. (1988). Longitudinal Study of Negative Emotion

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