Chernov, D. N. Peculiarities of Child And Parent Relationships in Families With Senior Preschoolers

Abstract: The subject under research is the structure of child-and-parent relations in families raising senior preschoolers. Relations inside the child-and-parent unity are viewed from the point of view of the concept of ‘collective subject’ that has been intensely developing by Russian psychologists. The research of the structural dynamic components of the child-and-parent relations in terms of the concept of collective subject has allowed to create a subject-oriented model of relations in the ‘parent-and-senior preschooler’ diad and the comparison of the present results with the earlier results of studying families that raise junior preschoolers has allowed to define the ontological aspect of this model’s dynamics. The research methodology included the subject-centered activity approach. The experiment studied 106 ‘mother-senior preschooler’ diads using a set of methods allowing to reveal the structure and contents of child-and-parent relations from the point of view of the degree of maturity of a collective subject. It has been found out that the typical features of the child-and-parent unity are the mutual relation / mutual dependence between a parent and a child, desire to extend spheres of their activities together and reflective attitude towards their individual and collective lives combined with the ‘indulgent hyper-protection’ parenting style. In such case a child has a positive attitude to his family situation and he has adequate relations with others, he is curious and sociable. The researcher also discusses how these results can be used for the theory and practice of studying the role of child-and-parent relations in a child’s personality formation.

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