Mother's Psychological Factors and Young Children s Internalizing & Externalizing Malbehaviors

어머니의 심리적 환경요인와 아동의 외면적.내면적 부적응행동

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of mother's depression, mother's negative self-acceptance, and father's psychological health perceived by mother, meditated by marital quality, on children's internalizing & externalizing behaviors. On the basis of precious literature, the theoretical model was specified and estimated. Subjects of this study consisted of 285 preschool children's mothers(160 boys and 125 girls aged from 5- to 7-year-old) drawn from fine child-care centers in Chung-ju City. The results were as following: Mother's depression was a statistically significant factor directly influencing on children's internalizing & externalizing behaviors and indirectly influencing on children's internalizing behavior through the marital quality. 2. Mother's negative self-acceptance was a statistically significant factor indirectly influencing on children's internalizing behavior through the marital quality. However, it did not haute any effects on either children's internalizing behavior or externalizing behaviors. 3. Father's psychological health perceived by mother was a statistically significant factor indirectly influencing on children's internalizing behaviors through the marital quality and directly influencing on children's externalizing behaviors. 4 Marital quality was strongly related to children's internalizing behaviors both directly and indirectly, however, it was not statistically associated with children's externalizing behaviors. Therefore, the model showed marital quality can be a mediating variable for children's internalizing behaviors only. The findings of results is to generate more broad-minded thinking about how mother's psychological factors, marital quality, and children's internalizing behaviors are interrelated.