The relationships between parents' emotion regulation skills and parent-child relationship and 4-6 years old children's social problem solving skills: A structural equation modeling

The acquisition of skills acquired in early childhood during this important period of time is important for the child's later life. The formation and development of behaviors during this precious period of time has a supportive role for the child to become a compatible individual with society and his environment in the future. It is expected that children will become aware of the problems they face in daily life and learn to cope with these existing social problems. Thus, instead of being afraid of encountering problems in later life, the child can create solutions and develop healthy relationships with the environment and society. Acquiring social problem solving competence at an early age allows them to become adults who can offer easy solutions to problems and establish good relationships with their surroundings. Based on this context, the current research aims to analyze in detail the relationship of two factors, namely the emotion regulation skills of parents with children aged 4-6 who attend preschool education and parent-child relationships, with their children's social problem solving skills using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The importance of the research is to determine the roles of parents in this process during preschool age, which is a critical period of children's social, cognitive and emotional development, and that this information guides the design of future educational programs and interventions. The data collection tools used in the research are "Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (DDA)", "Child Parent Relationship Scale", "Wally Social Problem Solving Test" and "Demographic Information Form". The sample was made up of 278 children (140 Girls, 138 Boys) and the mothers of these children studying in primary, secondary and high school kindergartens and kindergartens in Balıkesir province and Sındırgı district in the 2022-2023 academic year. The findings showed that the emotion regulation skills of parents and the quality of the parent-child relationship have a significant impact on the social problem solving abilities of children. The result of the research revealed the important role of healthy parent-child relationships and parents' development of effective emotion regulation strategies in supporting children's social adaptation and problem solving skills. It has been shown that parents' emotion regulation skills and parent-child relationships significantly predict children's social problem solving skills. According to the structural equation model, a positive strong relationship was found between the positive relationship dimension, which is the sub-dimension of parent-child relationship, and social Decolonization skill scores. The most critical proposal of the research is that preschool education programs should be designed to improve children's social problem solving skills and increase emotion regulation training for parents. These recommendations can contribute to social cohesion and individual success in the long term by ensuring that children have sound social skills at an early age. Keywords: Emotion Regulation, Social Problem Solving Ability, Parent-Child Relationship, Structural Equation Modeling