The connection of socio-demographic factors and child-parent relationships to the psychological aspects of children’s development

Abstract

Preschool childhood is a time of rapid development. During this period a child`s interaction with significant adults plays a very important role. The parent, as a mediator, defines the "zone of proximal development" (Vygotsky, 1984). The common assumption is that to determine a parent's position, it is important to acknowledge both socio-demographic factors and the parameters which define the socio-psychological aspects of parent-child relationship. Hence, the type of research where a child's psychological development is studied in the context of the socio-demographic and socio-psychological factors which determine the social situation of development, is very promising. Based on our previous research (Sobkin, Marich, 2002; Cheie, Veraksa, 2015), a program of experimental research intended to determine the interconnections between the socio-demographic and socio-psychological parameters of parent-child relationships, and the level of a child's psychic development, was designed. The research was based upon the material obtained through testing 59 children between 5 and 7 years old with specially collected psychological testing methods (Veraksa A.N. etc), as well as from the results of a special sociological questionnaire presented to their mothers (Sobkin V.S. etc). The research was carried out in 2014-2015 in municipal kindergartens of Moscow. Among the socio-demographic factors analyzed, the most significant results were related to the child's gender, the family structure, and the mother's education. Thus, boys showed higher results on visual memory tests, and girls scored better on tests for self-control and social intelligence (higher ability to detect the reason for someone else's negative emotions). Children from single-parent families had better results on verbal memory tests, but scored lower on those for self-control. Also they had less ability for decentration. The differences in mothers' educational levels influenced the number and intensity of children's fears, as well as their inclinations to avoid fearsome situations.

Development Features Of Preschool Children With Different Anxiety Levels

“…These components are related to each other, but they can also be viewed as being independent, separate from each other, which is why this model came to be known as "unity-with-diversity". Despite being initially based on the results obtained in adults, the possibility of using this model to describe development in childhood was also confirmed in the works by foreign and domestic researchers (Almazova et al, 2016;Cheie et al, 2014;Sobkin et al, 2016).…”

“…! The first was the Inhibition subtest consisting of two samples -Naming and Inhibition which recorded the number of errors and the amount of time it took the child to complete the test (Korkman et al, 2007;Sobkin et al, 2016).…”

Executive Functions And Theory Of Mind In Senior Preschool Age

“…Despite the fact that there has been active research into these issues in foreign psychology over the past 30 years, similar experimental studies are relatively rare in Russia with but very few of them being devoted to preschool age (Sobkin et al, 2016). It can be assumed that this situation stems from, among other things, the lack of well-developed diagnostic tools aimed to study theory of mind..…”

Gender Characteristics Of Junior Adolescents’ Personal Traits

“…A great attention should be paid to awkward ages when there are difficulties concerning a student's cognitive activity (Baranova et. al., 2017), when child-parent relationships become more significant (Sobkin et al, 2016), and when children's nervous and mental vulnerability increases (Nikolaev et al, 2016). Junior adolescent age also refers to an awkward age.…”