Parenting practices, perceived quality of care and social-emotional behaviors among children of working women under day-care and grandparent care

Abstract

The present study examines the relationship between parenting practices, perceived quality of care, and social-emotion behaviors (externalizing, internalizing, and pro-social) among children of working women under daycare and grandparent care. The present research used a cross-section research design. The sample consisted of mothers of children between the ages of 2-5 (N= 150) who were approached via purposive sampling. Alabama parenting questionnaire was used for measuring parenting practices of mothers, Emlen scale of quality of care, used for measuring the perceived quality of care and Strength and difficulty questionnaire was used to measure social-emotional behaviors of children. Pearson product-moment correlation analysis was used to explore the relationship between variables, and Multiple linear regression analysis was used to find if study variables predicted children's social-emotional behaviors. Moreover, t-test analysis was used to see the difference in social-emotional behaviors among children under two types of care. The results showed that there is a significant correlation between parenting practices of mothers and social-emotional behaviors of children and that there exists a difference in social-emotional behaviors among children under two types of care, children under daycare show more pro-social behavior and children under grandparent care show more externalizing behavior. The study is significant in the field of developmental psychology and childcare culture in Pakistan, as it sheds light on the behavior of children under daycare and grandparent care in the Pakistani context.