Examining of socio-cultural aspects of parenting experiences of Syrian mothers living in Ankara

Parenting is an important and challenging task for the development of children. Syrian mothers are trying to parent during the challenges of war and migration. Family and migration studies for these mothers are social work interventions. Social work is a professions that will provide support to mothers in parenting. It is essential to create programs and projects for this support which take cultural differences into account. While providing services to Syrian mothers, the necessary national or international qualitative studies for their host countries are limited. The study is significant in that it provides this information. This research aims to explore the perceptions of parenting, their experiences in the parenting process, evaluations concerning parenting by taking into account sociocultural differences of Syrian mothers living in Ankara. This study was conducted online or face-to-face in-depth interviews and participant observation with 16 participants. The findings indicate that parenting is a cherished task, however the process involves problems, challenges and concerns. Migration has both advantages and disadvantages. The findings support the fact that parenting studies yield different results in different societies. Parenting is shaped by the cultural characteristics of mothers, their experiences and the characteristics of the society which they live in. The parenting purpose and style of Syrian mothers are different from those described in the literature. For this reason, it is necessary new intermediate styles. The goal of mothers is to educate children. For this, they use applications involving heat or toughness. It was also found that seen parenting affects transferred parenting. Another finding is that mothers have difficulties in language, socialization, education and livelihood. As a result, practices that are sensitive to religious, linguistic and cultural differences supporting and strengthening the immigrant mothers' socialization, language learning, parenting skills and livelihoods should be developed. Practices that encourages the children's knowledge in religion, language development and sports should also be increased. Keywords Parenting, motherhood, Syrian mother, parenting styles, parenting attitudes, sociocultural differences.