The relationship of early maladaptive schemas in mothers with their 5-6 year old children's self-discipline and life satisfaction

The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between mothers' early maladaptive schemas and their 5-6 year old children's self-discipline and life satisfaction. The study was conducted with the relational survey method, one of the quantitative research techniques. The universe of the study consists of 5-6 year old children and their mothers who attend primary schools and independent kindergartens in the Selçuk district center of İzmir province in the 2022-2023 academic year. The sample consisted of 204 children and their mothers who were selected from this population using maximum variation sampling method. Personal Information Form, Young Schema Scale-Short Form 3 (SCS-SF3), Satisfaction with Life Scale and Self-Discipline Scale were used to collect the data of the study. Descriptive analyses, correlation analyses and regression analyses were used to analyze the data obtained in the study. According to the descriptive analysis results, the highest early maladaptive schema of the mothers was in the dimension of privilege/insufficient self-control, while the lowest early maladaptive schema was in the dimension of being singled out. As a result of the correlation analyses, it is seen that the self-discipline of 5-6 year-old children is significantly negatively correlated with emotional deprivation, pessimism, social isolation, suppression of emotions, approval-seeking, intertwining, privilege, self-sacrifice, abandonment, punishment, and vulnerability to threats among the early maladaptive schema dimensions of mothers. The results of regression analyses show that the contribution of mothers' early maladaptive schemas to the variance of 5-6 year old children's self-discipline is significant and approximately 14%, and the contribution to the variance of life satisfaction is significant and 23%. The results of the study show that mothers' early maladaptive schemas are effective on their children's self-discipline and life satisfaction. In this context, the findings obtained in this study were discussed in the light of the literature and suggestions were made to those concerned.