Examining the relationships between parents' parenting styles, parental self-efficacy, and self-perception of 5-6 year-old children

This study examines the relationship between the parenting styles of parents, their parenting self-efficacy levels, and the self-perception levels of 5- to 6-year-old children. Additionally, the effects of sociodemographic characteristics on the study variables were determined. The study group consisted of 5- to 6-year-old children attending kindergartens and daycare centers affiliated with the Konya Provincial Directorate of National Education, along with their mothers and fathers. The research involved 99 mothers aged between 20-48 years, 99 fathers aged between 20-50 years, and 99 children aged 5-6 years. To assess the parenting self-efficacy of mothers and fathers, the Revised Berkeley Parenting Self-Efficacy Scale was used. The Parenting Attitude Scale was used to determine their parenting styles, and a Sociodemographic Information Form, prepared by the researcher, was used to collect sociodemographic information such as the age, education level, and employment status of the parents, as well as the child's age and gender. These forms were sent to the parents via teachers. To assess the children's self-perception levels, the Demoulin Self-Perception Scale was applied face-to-face by the researcher to children whose parents had consented to participate in the study. The SPSS 26.0 software package was used for data analysis. Pearson Product-Moment Correlation, Simple Linear Regression Analysis, and One-Way ANOVA tests were used to analyze the data to test the study's objectives. The results of the study indicated that the scores of mothers on the Parenting Self-Efficacy Scale explained 33% of the variance in democratic parenting attitudes, 8.7% of the variance in authoritarian attitudes, and 7% of the variance in overprotective attitudes. Additionally, the scores of fathers on the Parenting Self-Efficacy Scale explained 44% of the variance in democratic parenting attitudes, 8.9% of the variance in authoritarian attitudes, and 10.8% of the variance in overprotective attitudes. Regarding permissive attitudes, however, neither the mother's nor the father's parenting self-efficacy scores had a statistically significant predictive effect. No significant relationship was found between parents' parenting self-efficacy and parenting styles, and the children's self-perception levels. The children's self-perception scores did not show significant differences according to the child's gender, mother's age, mother's education level, mother's employment status, father's age, and father's education level. Additionally, mothers' authoritarian, democratic, overprotective, and permissive parenting attitude scores did not show significant differences based on the child's gender, mother's age, or mother's education level. However, overprotective parenting attitudes significantly varied according to the mother's employment status. The findings revealed that non-working mothers had higher overprotective parenting scores compared to working mothers. Similarly, fathers' authoritarian, democratic, overprotective, and permissive parenting attitude scores did not show significant differences based on the child's gender or the father's education level, but overprotective parenting attitudes showed significant differences based on the father's age. The results indicated that fathers aged 20-35 had higher overprotective parenting scores compared to fathers aged 36-50. Keywords: Parenting styles, Parental self-efficacy, Self-perception.