The relation between mother and father acceptance-rejection levels of 4-5 year-old children and the children's emotional regulation skills and emotional behavioral problems

The present study aimed to investigate the relation between the acceptance-rejection levels of mothers and fathers with 4-5 year old children, their emotion regulation skills, and emotional-behavioral problems. In addition, it was also examined whether acceptance-rejection levels of mothers and fathers, children's emotion regulation skills, and emotional-behavioral problems differ according to the variables. The study group of this research consists of 219 children aged 4 and 5 who attend official independent kindergartens in the district of Küçükçekmece, Istanbul in the academic year 2020-2021 and their parents. "Parental Acceptance Rejection Questionnaire (Mother Form/Father Form)", "Emotion Regulation Scale", "Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (Teacher Form)" and demographic information form prepared by the researcher were used to collect the data. The research was planned and conducted in accordance with the relational screening model. SPSS 26.0 package program was used for statistical analysis of the data in the research. For the analysis of the data; descriptive analyzes, independent groups T-test, One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), Tukey test, Kruskal Wallis H Test, Mann Witney-U Test, Pearson Product Moments Correlation were used. According to the findings obtained from the research, a negative significant relation was found between the level of rejection of the parents and the emotion regulation skills of the children. While no significant relation was found between mothers' rejection levels and children emotional and behavioral problems, significantly relation was found between fathers' hostility/aggression and undifferentiated rejection levels and some sub-dimensions of children's emotional-behavioral problems. In addition, there is a negative significantly relation between emotion regulation skills and emotional-behavioral problems of the children in the study group. The acceptance-rejection levels of the parents significantly differ according to the birth order of the children and the number of siblings, the emotional regulation skills of the children significantly differ according to the socioeconomic level and the educational level of the mother. The emotional-behavioral problems differ significantly according to the gender of the child and the number of siblings. Finally, a positive and significantly relation was found between the acceptance-rejection levels of the mothers and the acceptance-rejection levels of the fathers. Keywords: Parental acceptance-rejection, emotion regulation, emotional and behavioral problems