Original scientific paper
Differences Between Parents' Perceptions of their Children's Behaviour and Interests in Towns and Villages, and Ethic in Research of Children
Josip Janković
; Department of Social Work, Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Damir Ljubotina
; Department of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Slavica Blažeka
; Department of Social Work, Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The article examines the differences between the parents' perceptions' of their children's behaviour and interests in regard to
their urban rural attributes in Croatia. Earlier researches indicated
differences primarily between mothers and fathers and also between
mothers' and teachers' evaluation of children's behaviour. Therefore,
serious ethical and methodology issues arose regarding the selection
of participants in the research of children. The issue arose because it
became impossible to make relevant conclusions on the state of the
children, their interests and activities and especially aberrations in their behaviour, which are more often a cry for help (social defence
mechanism) with which children try to get adult attention when they are not able to reach bio-psycho-social balance, then a serious
psychological behaviour disorder. In this article authors present differences between family roles (husband and wife or rather mother
and father) as well as introduce the type of settlement as an independent variable in order to examine how it is related to children's interests, activities as well as their behaviour and functioning. The results show that in the assessment of children's accepting parents requirements, which also indicates their acceptance of borders and rules, there are no significant difference between
mothers' and fathers', which isn't in line with previous research. At the
same time the type of settlement is also not decisive in the perception
of children's behaviour. However, there were differences in the children's choice of activities in the regard to the type of settlement:
the larger the town more of them go to cinemas, concerts or exhibitions, and as far as activities which are available to all such as
TV it is more common choice in villages then in towns and finally in cities. Similar trend can be observed in playing with animals. Children
in cities read the most. This trend is observed in both parents' assessment although in the sub sample the differences for mothers are somewhat lower. The number of activities grows with the size of
the settlement according to both parents with the differences in mothers' perception being lower. There is no significant difference in
the fathers' perception from different types of settlements on the number of school activities they children participate in but it was found
in the mothers' assessment. It was also found that mothers identify a
far greater number of their children's activates in all types of settlements. It was found that the difference in the parents' perception
of their children is less differentiated than in previous research.
However, the differences in the perception of behaviour, interests and
use of free time in regard to the type of settlement they live in are
far more common.
Keywords
children; mothers; fathers; interest; behaviour; evaluation; differences between parents
Hrčak ID:
33979
URI
Publication date:
12.3.2009.
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