Investigation of The Relationship Between Parental Styles With Communication Skills of Preschool Children

It can be stated that the relationships that parents have with their children in the preschool period have a great impact on their future social-emotional lives and a significant part of learning takes place in the preschool period. Considering those parents' attitudes during child-rearing may affect the child's development and interpersonal relationships; this study aims to examine the relationship between parental attitudes and communication skills of 36-72 monthold children attending preschool education institutions. This research: parents' attitudes concerning reveal the relationship between preschool children's communication skills, preschool in Turkey period in terms of the lack of a sufficient number of working children about the communication skills, parents and educators; it is thought to be important in terms of providing a different perspective and contributing to the development of children's communication skills and drawing their attention to this issue, and also in terms of guiding researchers in future studies on the subject. The research was conducted using the relational scanning model. The population of this research consists of 36-72 months old children attending pre-school education institutions in Elazığ city center and Diyarbakır central districts in the 2017-2018 academic year, and parents of 36-72 months old children. The sample of the study consisted of 300 children and 320 parents randomly selected from the universe. In the research, the "Parental Attitudes Questionnaire" and "Communication Skills Scale" were used. The Parental Attitudes Determination Questionnaire consists of four parental attitudes (oppressive-authoritarian, protective, indifferent-carefree, democratic). The Communication Skills Scale consists of four communication skills (verbal communication, avoiding communication barriers, and communication with courtesy content, non-verbal communication). The data obtained were analyzed with SPSS 22 program. In the statistical evaluation, firstly, a normality test was applied to the subscales of the "Parental Attitudes Determination Questionnaire" and the "Communication Skills Scale". Since “p <0.05” in all communication skills subscales and all parental attitudes subscales, it was accepted that they did not show a normal distribution. Thus, Spearman Correlation was applied to test whether there was a significant relationship between parent attitudes and communication skills. According to the results of the research it is observed that parents adopt "Democratic Attitude" the most and "Verbal Communication Skills" are used the most by preschool children. No significant relationship was found between oppressiveauthoritarian, indifferent-carefree, and democratic parental attitudes and subscales of communication skills. Only a low level of negative correlation was found between the protective parental style and the verbal communication skills subscale. According to the results of the study, parents and educators can be trained on parent attitudes and communication skills. Educators can support the development of children with low communication skills with activities that will showcase their social skills and allow them to express themselves. To parents who show a protective attitude; children can be helped to behave in a way that supports their verbal communication skills, affects the personality development of the child positively, and allows them to develop a personality structure independent of others. This research was conducted in Elâzığ and Diyarbakır provinces. Turkey will be held in the west of the province or be provided with a contribution to the results of the research will be done with a much larger sample group. The relationship between the communication skills of preschool children and an area different from the parent attitudes can be examined.