The child's "difficult" temperament and its relation with parental stress in groups of parents bringing up boys and girls

Abstract

Aim. The aim of the research was to verify whether a child's "difficult" temperamental traits: Low flexibility, low perseverance, low good mood and high bad mood are related to parental discrepancy (defined as the distance between parental goals, i.e. the features that parents want to shape in the child and the level of child development in terms of the shaped features) and the difficulties parents experience in their relationship with child (parental stress). Material and method. The study hypothesized that the child's "difficult" temperamental traits are related to parenting discrepancies and the experienced parental stress. The study involved 319 parents of children aged 3-6 years old (144 girls and 175 boys). A Generalized k-Means Cluster Analysis conducted by data mining algorithms was used for the analysis. Results. The study revealed, that: (a) higher parental stress is related to the negative mood of the children and the higher temperamental flexibility, (b) the lower parental stress is related to the higher positive mood in children. This relation occurs both in the group of parents raising boys and girls. Conclusions. Parental stress is associated with the temperamental feature of mood. The lower the positive mood of the child, the more the parent experiences stress in relationship with their child.