engleski

The relationship of family structure and family relationships to psychosocial adjustment in preschool children

Previous studies have shown that children’s developmental outcomes depend on the family structure in which they grow up, but also that the family relationships may be more important for children’s development than the family structure itself. For this reason we decided to examine social behavior and somatic problems of preschoolers depending on their family’s structure and relationships, as well as the children’s gender and age. Participant were 73 married and 72 single-mothers of preschool children (78 boys and 67 girls, mean age of 4, 9 years), from one small town in Croatia. The scales used were the Family Cohesion, The Family APGAR, the PROS/AG and The CBCL Somatic Complaints scale. The results showed no significant differences in somatic complaints of children living in one-parent and two-parent families, regardless of children’s gender and age. Differences in aggressive behavior depended only on children's gender, with boys being more aggressive than girls, regardless of the age and children's family structure. Prosocial behavior did not differ between boys and girls, but children living with single mothers were estimated as more prosocial than children living in two-parent families. Single and married mothers did not significantly differ in the perception of their family's cohesion and satisfaction with different aspects of family functioning, so these family characteristics were not significant differential features of child behavior in families of different structures.

family structure; family relationships; psychosocial adjustment; preschool children

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