Investigation of the relationship between parental attitudes and prosocial behavior of children in preschool period

Parental attitudes and behaviors can be quite effective on the child's development and developmental outcomes. Parents are their closest role models in the social development of their children. Parents' attitudes and behaviors are an important factor in the acquisition of prosocial behaviors, which play an important role in the social relations of children with other people. Prosocial behaviors constitute positive social behaviors at the foundation of healthy societies and it is very important to acquire these behaviors at an early age. The purpose of this research; to examine the relationship between parental attitudes and children's prosocial behavior in preschool period in terms of the demographic characteristics of the mother, attitudes and demographic characteristics of the child. The population of the study consists of 235 mothers whose children attend official and private pre-primary education institutions in the province of Malatya and the sample in Battalgazi and Yeşilyurt Districts. In the research, demographic information form, Child Prosecution Scale (Mother Form) and "Parental Attitude Scale" were used as data collection tools. IBM SPSS Statistics 22 program was used to analyze the data. Data analysis was carried out using percentage rate, T test for independent groups, single factor variance analysis (ANOVA) for unrelated samples, pearson moments product (correlation coefficient) and TUKEY test to determine the source of differences. While there was a weak positive relationship between democratic and overprotective parental attitudes and child prosocial behavior, the relationship between authoritarian parental attitude and child prosocial behavior was found to be negative. When the parental attitude was analyzed according to the demographic characteristics of the mother, significant relations were found between the democratic parental attitude and the number of children and the gender of the child. The rates of overprotection attitudes of working mothers differ positively, and it is seen that mothers who do not work exhibit more prosocial behavior with a positive meaningful difference.