The Mediating Role of Self-Differentiation and Parental Reflection in the Relationship Between Mother’s Own Childhood Overprotection Experience and Her Parenting Behavior

Objectives: This study aims to determine how mothers’ parenting experiences affect their attitudes toward raising children. Specifically, it examines how the experience of being raised by overprotective parents affects a mother’s parenting behavior and analyzes the structural relationship and impact of self-differentiation and parental reflection variables on the relationship between the two variables.Methods: The study participants were mothers of infants found through children's institutions located in Gwangju and Jeollanam-do. The institutions had been selected randomly and consent was obtained from all participants. A total of 374 questionnaires were analyzed using SPSS 20.0 and SPSS PROCESS macro.Results: First, it was confirmed that self-differentiation completely mediated the relationship between mothers’ childhood overprotection experience and mothers’ negative parenting behavior through self-differentiation. Second, it was confirmed that parental reflection regulates the relationship between mothers’ childhood overprotection experience and self-differentiation. Third, the statistical significance of the controlled mediating effect of parental reflection was confirmed in the path in which the mother's childhood overprotection affected parenting behavior through self-differentiation. This suggests that, even if the mother was overprotected as a child and has a low level of self-differentiation, enhancing parental reflection can reduce negative parenting behaior.Conclusion: This study is meaningful in that it discovered the possibility of modifying the process of negative parenting behavior between generations through the parental reflection function. In addition, the fundamental limitations of the previous parental education were revised and suggestions were made for the development of parental education programs that involve the parental reflection functions.

Effects of Maternal Overprotection on Social Competence in Young Children: The Mediating Role of Young Children’s Anxiety

Objectives: This study aimed to examine the direct and indirect effects of maternal overprotection on the development of young children’s social competence through their anxiety. In this study, maternal overprotection was defined as anxiously shielding their young children from having negative experiences and maintaining developmentally inappropriate intrusive and permissive parenting for their children.Methods: Participants were 183 mothers and 18 teachers with young children aged from four to six years. Mothers rated themselves on the degree of their overprotecting behaviors measured by a maternal overprotection scale for young children (Y. S. Chung & Park, 2021). Teachers rated young children’s anxiety and social competence. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and a structural equation model. Bootstrapping method was applied to examine the significance of the mediating effects.Results: First, there were significant correlations between maternal overprotection, young children’s anxiety and social competence. Second, structural equation modeling supported the hypothesized relations among maternal overprotection, young children’s anxiety and social competence after controlling with young children’s gender, maternal academic background, and monthly household income. And the level of young children’s anxiety mediated the relationship between overprotective parenting and young children’s social competence.Conclusion: This study showed that mother’s overprotective parenting was associated with varying levels of young children’s anxiety and social competence. Additionally the maternal overprotection linked with children’s social competence indirectly through their anxiety. These findings offer basic knowledge applicable to parent education and the for the development of program for improving parenting behaviors. The limitations and other implications of this study are also discussed.