Abstract
The role played by parents in the development of the child as they grow up is very vital in their lives. Parental love and warmth is very important to a child’s development. This is because they shape a child’s life as they grow up in terms of their behavior, interactions and even their performance at school. Children’s social skills developed at an early age are very important for their success in early school education. These skills are mainly developed during the time the child is under their parents care. Research studies have shown that children who luck social skills have a problem making new friends in school as they start up and they face peer rejection and poor performance in schools.
The study is focused on families with children who are aged between 1 and 5 and are attending kindergarten and also early childhood instructors/teachers. These respondents are the target group of the study as they have children whom they have brought up and who are currently undergoing through the early childhood education. The study is important for early childhood educational institutions so that they can plan for the strategies to use in the learning process of the children.
The study aims at establishing how the activities that are undertaken by parents on their children impact on their social skills as they enroll for early childhood education. The environment of the child as they grow up is chore to determining their success later in life.
The questionnaire is structured and non-disguised and it is designed using both open- ended and closed format questions. This is aimed at giving the respondent a chance to exhaust all the required information and to ease coding and analyzing of information.
Responses categories used include:
Poor, Average, Good, Excellent-this category makes it easy for the respondent to answer the question. It is used in leading question makes it easy to get an opinion from the respondent. It is also easy to determine the pattern among respondents and thus doing the analysis becomes less tasking.
Agree, strongly agree, Disagree, and strongly disagree –this category is used to show the level of satisfaction or contentment or the likeability of an opinion
The yes or no category is the most commonly used response. The respondent is able to express his or her opinion in a clear way. It is also easy to do the analysis with this kind of a response
There are different items that are used to measure the opinions and attitudes of the respondents:
Demographic factors such as age, sex, and gender-This is intended to determine the maturity of the respondents. Reliability of the data can be measure by having the right respondents who are experienced parents .Marital status is also important in the fact that children with both parents available show better social skills. Divorce and separation affects children negatively as they grow up.
The professional status of the respondent is very important as it determines the type of care the parents provide to their children, Parents employment whether self or formal employment at times steals parental care away from children. Parents who are employed on full time basis spend less time with children and therefore they don’t play a critical role in the development of their children. Self employment is flexible and the parents can spend quality amount with their children. However stay-at-home mothers are better placed to take care of their children and they are always there in every step of their growth.
The type of care arrangements of the child is meant to measure the quality of care given to a child as the different types of child care providers are different in their own way and the strategies they use in the care giving differ from one to the other. They instill different character on the children under their care.
The performance of the children at school is intended to measure the impact of the parental care on their grades.
The time parents spend with their children is vital. Parents can mould their children behavior and observe their progress if they spend quality time with them. Parents mold the children character as they grow. They should play with as often as possible and guide them in the right direction.
The head start program prepares children for early childhood education. They are taught practical skills like painting, artwork and other recreation activities. The skills children have before they join educational institutions can be measured in order to evaluate their impact on their social skills.
The number of friends the children have is used to measure their interactive skills. The more friends they have means they are more exposed and can socialize easily which so they are not loners.
The level of interaction is also used o measure their social skills, interpersonal skills and confidence.
Children hobbies are used to measure the instilled qualities that they are taught while young which they come to like and adopt as their pass time activities. They are able to interact with other children.
Methods of conflict resolution shape the children in terms of their behavior. They should be corrected in the right manner less it become rebellious and never learn from their mistakes.
The social activities the children engage in are used to determine the social situations that they are involved in. These are the places they get to meet people, make friends and mingle.
The instrument allows maximum amount of information to be collected from the respondents within a short period of time and information is also easily quantified. On the other hand the respondents may fail to understand some information in the questionnaire. The information may is be unreliable as one cannot tell whether the respondent is telling the truth.
Questionnaire
References
Brotherson, S. (2006, July). Keys to Assisting Social Development in Young Children. Retrieved November 28, 2012, from Bright Beginnings: http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/yf/famsci/fs670w.htm
Gillham, B. (2004). Developing a Questionnaire. London: Continuum International Publishing Group.
Piazza, A. (2012, September 6). Basics of Survey and Question Design. Retrieved 2012, from HowTo.Gov: http://www.howto.gov/customer-service/collecting-feedback/basics-of-survey-and-question-design
The Heritage Foundation. (2012, November 28). Day Care and Children's Wellbeing. Retrieved from Family Facts: http://www.familyfacts.org/briefs/37/daycare-and-childrens-well-being
The National Foundation for Educational Research in England and Wales. (2012, November 28). How to analyse questionnaire responses. Retrieved from Developing your Reseachers: http://www.nfer.ac.uk/schools/developing-young-researchers/how-to-analyse-questionnaire-responses.cfm
