De relatie tussen ouderlijke attributies en negatieve disciplinering in de peutertijd: Bestaan er verschillen tussen vaders en moeders?

Abstract

In this study, research has been done into the relationship between parental attributions and harsh discipline in the preschool age and the difference therein between fathers and mothers. For this, 50 parents with a child between 24 and 51 months (M = 35.1, SD = 7.6, 54% jongen ) completed to chard the degree of child-responsible and parent-responsible attributions and harsh discipline. The results show that fathers and mothers do not differ in terms of the extent to which they apply negative discipline. However, a difference has been found regarding parental attributions. Although both mothers and fathers appear to have significantly more child-responsible attributions, it has been found that mothers have significantly more child-responsible attributions than fathers. For mothers, a significant, positive relationship was found between child-responsible attributions and harsh discipline as well as between parent-responsible attributions and harsh discipline. In addition, only child-responsible attributions appear to be an important predictor for harsh discipline. For fathers, no relationships were found between parental attributions and harsh discipline. In conclusion, child-responsible attributions appear to be an important predictive factor for harsh discipline, with differences found between fathers and mothers. This provides starting points for the development of prevention programs.