Publicação
Promoting forgiveness in pre-school children: A cultural study of mothers' reasoning and strategies
| Resumo: | Children in their daily peer relationships may encounter a situation in which a peer unjustly offends them, and as a result they need to make a decision on how to solve unjustified or unjust offences. In this regard, enhancing children’s forgiveness skills is remarkably important for developing their peer competence and positive development. Furthermore, forgiveness is associated with one’s relief of anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, anger and resentment. Given that, fostering children’s forgiveness skills is of great importance. How young children develop their understanding and proneness to forgive can be a demanding socialization task for parents’ evaluations of the wrongdoing and needs-oriented forgiveness reasoning. Children’s reasoning and justification regarding their decision-making in conflict resolution is dependent on their understanding of what authorities such as parents consider acceptable behavior. Thus, parents’ beliefs, moral reasoning and educational strategies are key socialization processes and, alongside a number of positive outcomes in social, cognitive, moral and emotional development, they are critical in boosting the child’s competence to forgive others’ wrongdoing. This study aimed at exploring mothers’ reasoning and socialization strategies when helping their young children to forgive the harm caused by a peer, through a cultural lens. With this aim, and given the very few studies in this area, this project presents a model of mothers’ reasoning and socialization strategies in promoting their child’s forgiveness skills and the study that supported the development and validity of the mothers’ forgiveness-promoting strategies scale (MFSS). In order to compare mothers’ forgiveness-promoting strategies from a cultural perspective, two samples of Iranian and Portuguese mothers were collected, assuming that Iran and Portugal respectively represent cultural models oriented to interdependence and independence. A total of 253 mothers (n=129 Portuguese; n=124 Iranian) of 4 to 6 year-old children participated in the study. Results suggest that the MFSS demonstrated an early promise as an instrument for exploring the mothers’ strategies in promoting the children’s forgiveness skills, although further validity studies are required. In addition, multivariate analyses showed significant differences between Iranian and Portuguese mothers’ forgiveness-promoting strategies. Moreover, within and across the two cultures, mothers’ forgiveness-promoting strategies differed according to their socio-demographic status, including educational level and religious characteristics. Results are discussed in relation to their implications for parenting education and a culturally-oriented approach to the socio-moral development of children. |
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| Autores principais: | Naeimi, Nava |
| Assunto: | Forgiveness Mothers’ reasoning and strategies Preschool-aged children Socialization practices Moral reasoning Perdão Raciocínio e estratégias maternas Crianças em idade pré-escolar Práticas de socialização Raciocínio moral |
| Ano: | 2016 |
| País: | Portugal |
| Tipo de documento: | tese de doutoramento |
| Tipo de acesso: | acesso aberto |
| Instituição associada: | Universidade do Minho |
| Idioma: | inglês |
| Origem: | RepositóriUM - Universidade do Minho |
| Resumo: | Children in their daily peer relationships may encounter a situation in which a peer unjustly offends them, and as a result they need to make a decision on how to solve unjustified or unjust offences. In this regard, enhancing children’s forgiveness skills is remarkably important for developing their peer competence and positive development. Furthermore, forgiveness is associated with one’s relief of anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, anger and resentment. Given that, fostering children’s forgiveness skills is of great importance. How young children develop their understanding and proneness to forgive can be a demanding socialization task for parents’ evaluations of the wrongdoing and needs-oriented forgiveness reasoning. Children’s reasoning and justification regarding their decision-making in conflict resolution is dependent on their understanding of what authorities such as parents consider acceptable behavior. Thus, parents’ beliefs, moral reasoning and educational strategies are key socialization processes and, alongside a number of positive outcomes in social, cognitive, moral and emotional development, they are critical in boosting the child’s competence to forgive others’ wrongdoing. This study aimed at exploring mothers’ reasoning and socialization strategies when helping their young children to forgive the harm caused by a peer, through a cultural lens. With this aim, and given the very few studies in this area, this project presents a model of mothers’ reasoning and socialization strategies in promoting their child’s forgiveness skills and the study that supported the development and validity of the mothers’ forgiveness-promoting strategies scale (MFSS). In order to compare mothers’ forgiveness-promoting strategies from a cultural perspective, two samples of Iranian and Portuguese mothers were collected, assuming that Iran and Portugal respectively represent cultural models oriented to interdependence and independence. A total of 253 mothers (n=129 Portuguese; n=124 Iranian) of 4 to 6 year-old children participated in the study. Results suggest that the MFSS demonstrated an early promise as an instrument for exploring the mothers’ strategies in promoting the children’s forgiveness skills, although further validity studies are required. In addition, multivariate analyses showed significant differences between Iranian and Portuguese mothers’ forgiveness-promoting strategies. Moreover, within and across the two cultures, mothers’ forgiveness-promoting strategies differed according to their socio-demographic status, including educational level and religious characteristics. Results are discussed in relation to their implications for parenting education and a culturally-oriented approach to the socio-moral development of children. |
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