The Correlational Research On 5-6 Year-old Children's Self-consciousness And Parenting Locus Of Control

Self-consciousness is children's cognition of themselves and their relationship with the object world.Children's self-consciousness is affected by many factors in which the parents play a vital important role as the children's important caregivers.Parenting locus of control reflects parents' opinion of parenting role from the view of control locus and it relates to the sense of responsibility,effectiveness,and perceptions of control.Therefore,in this research,we will explore the relationship of children's self-consciousness and parents' parenting control locus by questionnaire and interviewing,so as to provide more reference and suggestions to the family caring for the developing of children's self-consciousness.109 children from different levels of kindergartens of Shanghai participated in the interviewing,and their parents filled in the Parenting control locus Questionnaire.The major finding of this study shows following:(1)The children aged 5-6 score highest in Behavioral Adjustment and lowest in Physical Appearance.Except for Physical Appearance,girls have higher degree of self-consciousness than boys,and the difference has reached to the significant level in Behavioral Adjustment.Children from Demonstration kindergartens have the lowest degree of self-consciousness in Intellectual and School Status.(2)The children who are the eldest child in a family sore highest in Freedom form Anxiety compared with the others.Other demographic variables don't have a significant impact on the degree of children's self-consciousness.(3)Parenting locus of control are most external in Parents' Control of Their Children's Behaviors and most internal in The Effect of Education.Boys' parents are more external in Parents' Control of Their Children's Behaviors than girls'.Parents whose child are in Demonstration kindergartens are most external in parenting locus of control.(4)Most of demographic variables affect parents' parenting locus of control,such as gender,age,education background,occupation,family structure and whether or not parents are child's primary caregiver.(5)Children's self-consciousness and parents' parenting locus of control show a negative correlation.The higher scores of parental locus of control are,the stronger external control are,the lower degree of self-consciousness children will have.Finally,based on these results,we provide some relevant recommendations from the view of how their parents could help to improve the self-consciousness of children.