Mother's mental health and it's relation with developmental characteristics of their children in the light of socioeconomic- cultural level

Abstract

The study aimed to recognize the relationship between the mothers’ psychological disorder symptoms and their children developmental characteristics, in addition to detect differences in mothers’ psychological disorder symptoms and the developmental characteristics of their children according to the variable of the economic and cultural level of the family and the child's gender. The study was conducted on a random sample of (334) mothers and (334) children of kindergartens in Khan Younis. The researchers followed the descriptive analytical method. Also, the researchers used the Scale of the cultural and socio-economic level for the family prepared by Al Hawarna (2009), (Symptom Checklist-90- Revised (SCL) - 90- R) prepared by Derogatis, Lipman&Covi (1976), al Buhairi Translation (2005), and tests battery for growth of the kindergarten children prepared by Kanawy and Mohammed (1999). The study results showed:A statistically significant inverse relationship between mother's psychological disorder symptoms and most aspects of their children growth. Results also showed that there are statistically significant differences in most of psychological disorder symptoms according to the cultural and socio-economic level in favor of the low-level, as it turns out there are statistically significant differences in most growth aspects among children according to the socio-cultural and economic of the family in favor of the high-level. The results also showed differences in the aspects of cognitive and emotional development in favor of females, while the significant differences in other aspects were not showed.