The Impact of Mother-Child Separation on 5 to 7-Year-Old Children among Employed and Non-Employed Mothers Kindergarten

Scientists and scholars of education have constantly approved of theindispensable and vital role of family in different aspects of children’s growth. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the psychological (cognitive, affective, behavioral and social) impact of motherchild separation on 5 to 7-year-old kindergarten children among employed and non-employed mothers. This research was carried out in two different phases. In the first descriptive phase, simple random cluster sampling method was utilized and a number of 177 children were selected from kindergartens located in the northern, western, southern, eastern and central parts of Tehran (School Districts 1, 3, 5, 7 and 15 of the department of education and state welfare organization). In the second phase, 43 and 34 children were respectively selected as the criterion and control groups using the casualcomparative method. The instrumentation in the cognitive, social, affective and behavioral domains consisted of Raven's Test, Wyland Test, Randolph’s Test and a self-devised questionnaire, respectively. The tests were administered to the children and their mothers. The descriptive results indicated that in the cognitive domain most 5 to 6- and 6 to 7-year-old children obtained average and above-average intelligence scores. In the affective domain, most children (55 percent) were in an insecure state of attachment and suffered from attachment disorder whilst the rest of the children were in a secure attachment condition. Regarding the children’s behavior, most children suffered from reactive attachment disorder. The social age of most 5 to 6-year-old children was normal and above average; however, it was below average for most 6 to 7-year-old ones. The t-test results and the comparison of the control and criterion groups indicated that children attending kindergarten compared to non-attending ones were in a better state intelligence-wise. Nevertheless, these children suffered from more attachment and behavioral disorders compared with the children of non-employed mothers. The comparison of children attending kindergarten (of both employed and non-employed mothers) showed that there was no difference among them considering all the variables under study; nonetheless, children of the employed mothers suffered from more behavioral problems in comparison with those of non-employed ones. Regarding the gender variable, it was shown that there was only a significant difference in the attachment test. In other words, the attachment disorder was more common and observable among the boys compared to the girls.