earticle

영어

Number of early children who spend time in childcare center today has been increasing. Most young children don't have difficult time adjusting themselves to childcare center. But some young children have hard time in separating from their mothers and experience separation anxiety. Many factors have influenced separation anxiety. Attachment to mother has been identified as one of the most influential factors. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between preschooler's separation anxiety, attachment security, and mother's positive parenting attitude. And it was to verify the mediating effect of the mother's positive parenting attitude in the relationship between the preschooler's separation anxiety and attachment stability. Using a questionnaire survey, data were collected from 323 mothers of 3 to 5 year old children attending a daycare center and kindergarten of the Busan metropolitan city. The collected data were statistically analyzed by descriptive statistics (frequency, mean, standard deviation), Pearson correlation, and Mediation analysis. The results were as follows: First, preschooler's separation anxiety has a negative relationship in positive parenting attitude and attachment stability, and positive parenting attitude has a positive relationship in attachment stability. Second, there was a mediating effect of positive parenting attitude in the relationship between preschooler's separation anxiety and attachment stability. In other words, the preschooler's separation anxiety affected attachment stability by mediating positive parenting attitude. These results showed the importance of positive parenting by parents, suggesting that attachment stability is needed to prevent preschooler's separation anxiety, which is possible by mediating positive parenting attitudes of parents.