Abstract:

Children receive the most significant support from their parents to adapt to their postnatal environment. Establishing effective communication between children and their parents, who play a primary role in the development of the child, would affect the development of the child positively. The present study aimed to analyze the communication between parents and preschool children based on certain variables. The study is a quantitatively designed descriptive study. The study group included the parents (n = 454) of 227 children (123 girls and 104 boys) attending a pre-school education institution. The "Parent-Child Communication Assessment Instrument" developed by Arabacı (2011) was used to collect the study data. Data analysis was conducted with Mann Whitney-U and Kruskal Wallis-H tests. Study findings demonstrated that empathy, speech and message had an impact on mother-child communication and mothers’ communications with their children was at a better level when compared to that of the fathers. Mother-child communication was affected by the gender of the child, the number of children and the family structure; it was determined that the parent-child communication was influenced by the age of the child, age, education status and occupation of the parents.

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