Izvorni znanstveni članak
Are Temporary Guardians Suitable Substitutes for Parents?
Vesna Ciglar
; Pedagoška akademija, Čakovec, Hrvatska
Sažetak
The author attempts to answer the question posed in the title on the basis of a larger body of data collected during research. Basic descriptive data on the population of persons temporarily acting as parents (during the parents’ temporary absence due to work abroad) shows that guardians are mostly grandparents, elderly people who by their psychophysical traits are quite different from the generation of parents of the children in the sample. The guardians’ education in general amounts to four-year elementary school, which, along with the conditions of their age, does not enable them to “keep in step” with the generation that they are bringing up. Since the temporary sojourn of the parents is all the more becoming everything but temporary, the author wished to test whether long-term separation of children from their parents induced them to compensate the parents’ absence in relations with their guardians. By testing a group of 134 pupils in grades IV, V and VI in elementary schools in Međimurje (North Croatia), it was confirmed that the intensity of their emotional ties to their temporary guardians was significantly less intense than their ties with their parents, with which they in fact have minimal contacts and experience. The most often men¬tioned descriptions of emotional ties with temporary guardians were “they take care of me” / “they support me”, which do not indicate dominance of affectional elementary ties but rather a feeling of “duty, debt and respect” towards “sacrifices” made by guardians fulfilling the parental roles. (In fact the guardians often expressed this aspect.) On the basis of data and interpretations presented in the appendix, one can conclude that temporary guardians are not suitable substitutes for parents, regardless of their good will and wish to be so.
Ključne riječi
guardians; emotional ties; Međimurje
Hrčak ID:
127747
URI
Datum izdavanja:
31.12.1990.
Posjeta: 1.018 *