A Study On The Current Situation And Educational Strategies Of Parents’ Emotional Coping Styles Of Children

Year 3 to year 6 is of the critical period for children’s emotional development.Sound emotional development is a key factor for children’s all-around development including,personality,socialization and cognition.How parents respond to children’s emotion is a focus of research in the literature of parenting and home education.This study,employing a mixed approach,aims to explore the current situation of parents’ responses and strategies when dealing with 3-6 years old children’s emotions,including excitement,pride,sadness,fear and anger.Firstly,7 participating parents were recruited through social network strategy.Qualitative interviews were conducted in order to understand the typical situations and factors that trigger children’s emotions and parents’ perceptions of their children’s emotions and coping strategies.Secondly,based on qualitative findings,this study designed questionnaires and administered the questionairs in five kindergartens in Liaoning province.Statistical analyses were done to understand the current situation of the children’s parents’ emotional responses and the investigation and analysis on the influencing factors,and the correlation and regression analysis has been done for the children’s emotion regulation strategies.The results suggest that 3-6 year old have various emotional incentives and complex situations.Most parents have a reasonable understanding and conception of their children’s emotions,and their parents’ emotional coping styles can be divided into 9 types.Among all coping styles,parents of young children most often use "problem concern" coping style,and least use "ignore" coping style.The study also find that parents’ emotional coping style is correlated with their gender,age,education background,as well as children’s gender and age.In addition,parental cognitive reappraisal strategies can positively predict supportive coping styles and negatively predict unsupportive coping styles.Based on the findings reported in this study,I propose the following suggestions: Firstly,parents should create a warm and harmonious family environment for their children and attach importance to the cultivation of their emotional ability.Secondly,parents should understand and accept children’s emotions.Finally,in order to help parents flexibly grasp scientific and effective emotional coping strategies in practice,specific coping methods are proposed for children’s five common emotions.