2011 Volume 25 Issue 1 Pages 56-67
Focusing on mothers' internal working model (IWM), this study examined the relationship between mothers' IWM and the difficulty of raising children. In other words, the aim was to investigate how a mother's IWM type is related to her perception of how difficult it is to raise children. The study was conducted on 102 mothers (mean age 32.8 years) of 3-year-old children, who answered written questionnaires consisting of questions about their IWM (18 items) and questions about the difficulty of raising children (53 items).
Factor analysis of the results of the questionnaire regarding the difficulty of raising children produced 3 factors, namely “cranky/dependence”, “bad mood” and “unstable relationships”, which comprised the “difficulty of raising children scale”. Furthermore, when results were examined in relation to the mothers' IWM, it appeared that mothers with a secure type IWM were able to accept their children’s crankiness and cope with it easily. Mothers with an avoidant type IWM tended to consciously recognize that their children were easy to raise, but showed many instances of finding it difficult to connect to them, and had a tendency to try not to see these situations.
The results of this study showed that there is a relationship between a secure IWM and the mother's perception of children being easy to raise. Furthermore, the results also indicated that there is a relationship between avoidant IWM and difficulty in connecting to children, although it is possible that mothers are not aware of this. These results suggest the need for support for avoidant mothers in raising children, as well as the difficulty of providing such support.
