Study About Child Development

¶ … deduce the effects of parenting on the process of coping for a child, as parents take divorces or get separated. The data sample includes children aged between 9 to 12 years. These effects are being reviewed by studying the changes induced by intervention in a mother-child relationship quality and discipline (Ve'lez, Wolchik, Tein, & Sandler, 2011).

The article explains that children are more prone to the risk of getting mental health problems if they suffer from psychosocial stressors. In the presence of these stressors, such mental health problems can be avoided if the coping efforts are more active and engaging. Coping efficacy or the belief in one's self of being able to positively negotiate with the effects of emotional traumas and situations also plays a positive part in keeping at bay the development of mental health problems. It is mentioned that several factors can aid in developing an effective coping process in a child, which can be the increasing influence of parents on their children by means of interaction and coaching. This study focuses on the linkage of the mother-child relationship quality and discipline, with the active and avoidant coping efforts.

Since the mother-child relationship provides the child with more security, guidance and comfort, a positive relationship of a child with the mother can aid in achieving an active coping effort and develop coping efficacy. The consistent and effective discipline makes children adaptive to the surrounding environment by creating in them a sense of evaluation and recognition, enhancing their chances of attaining coping efficacy.

Through understanding the results of various past studies on related topics, this study used a longitudinal design research method to deduce whether changes based on intervention in the quality and effective discipline of the relationship of mother and child resulted in active or avoidant coping efforts in both a short-term period of 6 months and a long-term period of 6 years.

The participants that were selected for the study included families in which a divorce had occurred not over two years ago, the child was in the custody of a single mother and the mother was not in a relationship with anyone during the experiment. Eventually, a sample size of 240 participants was selected based on interviews for the test. These participants were than divided into three conditional groups for the remaining period of the study; a mother only group, a mother plus child group, and a literature control group.

The mother-only and the mother plus child groups operated by means of a total of 11 sessions. Meetings with the mother included discussing the mother-child quality and effective discipline, father's access to the child and conflicts amongst parents. The sessions with the children included focus on increasing effective coping, improving the quality of the mother-child relationship and reducing negative thoughts about divorce related stressors using the help of activities such as video games, problem solving, role plays, etc. The literature control condition involved both mother and child being provided with 3 books about divorce adjustment and guidance to be completed over a period of six weeks.

To achieve the outcomes from the study, participants were interviewed on 5 different occasions; pre-test, post-test, 3 months after the test, 6 months after the test and 6 years after the test. These interviews included completing of subscales by both mothers and children on the factors of relationship quality, discipline and coping efforts. The results were deduced based on the data collected via the interviews, subscales and meditational testing.

The findings of the study reveal that the in the short-term period, the coping efficacy significantly increase, while in the longer term period, there are significantly higher levels of coping efficacy and active coping. Moreover, the finding also suggest that a strong relationship with the mother can have remarkable positive effects as they promote adaptive coping after parental divorces, and aid in helping children to battle off the stressors that can lead to avoidant coping. The findings also revealed that the discipline factor was non-significant with the coping process in children. The differences in the participants based on gender, parenting, and baseline risk status did not provide any evidence regarding the relations between the child's coping processes and parenting.