The relation between child discipline practices and behavioral problems in a rural area in southeast of Turkey

The aims of this study are to determine main discipline attitudes from a rural area of  Turkish parents and the relationship between discipline methods and behavioral problems.

MATERIAL and METHODS

85 parents of 162 school age children who lived Mardin Gelinkaya were recruited this study. Parental discipline attitudes were asked with a questionnaire, and Conners Parent rating Scale (CPRS) was used to examine emotional and behavioral problems of children. Crostabs and Chi-square analyses were use for ordinal parameters as options of questions and demographic data. Abnormal disturbance was seen on CPRS averages so non-parametric analyses such as Man-Witney-U and one way ANOVA were used.

RESULTS

85 parents of 160 children completed the questionnaire. 30.2% of questionnaires were completed by mothers,   69.8% by mothers. 54.7% of children were boys and 45.3% were girls. The average age of children was determined as 9.2±1.7.

46.5% of parents reported that their knowledge of child discipline was based on their parents' and their childhood experiences. 23.3% of parent didn't start "to say no" to their children before age of 6.  When age of starting "to say no" was increased, CPRS scores were increasing, too. "A gift" and "to smooch and hug" was determined as more used prizes.

84.9% of parents reported that their children had been never used computer.

25.3% of them never trained their children sexually. It was seemed that many emotional and behavioral problems of children were effected by parental attitudes.

Conclusion: Parental attitudes should be considered through child mental health practices. In addition, it is necessary, parental guidance should be obtained. To serve group training for parents during mental health practices are important subject and it is a need not only but also worldwide. Key Words: parental attitude, discipline, behavioral problem.