Examining Relationships between Parenting Skills, Sense of Mutual Trust, and Children's Psychological Adjustment from Mother–Child Data

Abstract

This study investigated the relationships between parenting skills, mother–child recognition for the sense of mutual trust, and children's psychological adjustment. Further, mother–child data were gathered for mothers and children, who ranged from fifth grade elementary school to third grade junior high school. Thus, two factors were identified, namely, “understanding respect skills” and “morality skills.” Mothers assigned higher scores to elementary school students compared to junior high school students for understanding respect skills and sense of mutual trust; the elementary school students had higher scores than junior high school students on every scale. Girls particularly had higher scores than the boys in understanding respect skills, morality skills, and sense of mutual trust. Conversely, boys had higher scores than girls in self-esteem. Understanding respect skills recognized prediction of mothers' and children's sense of mutual trust and children's psychological adjustment. Thus, it was concluded that sense of mutual trust influenced children's psychological adjustment.