The Relationship between Maternal Acceptance-Rejection Levels and Preschoolers' Social Competence and Emotion Regulation Skills

The purpose of this research was to examine the relationship between maternal acceptance-rejection levels and preschool children's social competence and emotion regulation skills. The study group of the research, which was designed in survey method, consisted of 303 voluntary mother-child dyad. The participant children were attending a preschool in 2014-2015 academic year, in Istanbul and they were selected by random cluster sampling method. The "Personal Information Form", the "Parental Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaire-Mother Form (PARQ)", the "Social Competence and Behavior Evaluation-30 (SCBE-30)" and the "Emotion Regulation Checklist" were used as data collection tools. As a result of the study, it has been found that there is a positive significant relationship between maternal acceptance level and children's "Social Competence" subscale of SCBE-30 and their emotional regulation skills. In addition to this result, it has been found that maternal acceptance level didn't differentiated according to age and gender of the child; however the average scores of PARQ's "Warmth/Affection" subscale have been differentiated in favor of the girls. It has been found that "Social Competence" and "Anger-Aggression" subscales of SCBE-30 were significantly differentiated according to gender; "Anger-Aggression" scores of the boys were higher than the girls, whereas "Social Competence" scores of the girls were higher than the boys. Moreover, it has been found that "Lability-Negativity" subscale scores of Emotion Regulation Checklist have been differentiated according to gender; girls showing less labile/negative emotional reactions. Finally, it has been found that child's social competence and emotional regulation skills increase as the age increases.