Variables Influencing Children's Self-Esteem in Low Income Families

저소득층 가족의 경제적 어려움이 아동의 자존감에 미치는 영향

Path analysis was used to determine variables influencing the self-esteem of 222 4th, 5th, and 6th grade children in law-income families. The children and their mothers responded to questionnaires on self-esteem, child psychological traits, mother psychological characteristics, economic hardship, and child rearing practices. Mothers' warmth-acceptance child rearing behavior was facilitating of children's self-esteem. However, mothers' economic stress had an indirect impact via their depression on decrease in the warmth-acceptance variable. Permissive-nonintervention child rearing behavior decreased the level of children's self-esteem. However, mothers' depression and marital confilct(??) deriving from economic stress increased both rejection-restriction and permissive-nonintervention styles of child rearing. Mothers who experienced much stress due to economic hardship influnced(??) children's perception of their family's poverty and thereby lowered their children's self-esteem.