Paternal involvement in household and childcare has increased over the past century, but global studies show that most mothers still remain responsible for a significantly higher proportion of total household care and childcare. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic has further negatively impacted mothers, who take on the majority of childcare…

Despite the unique status of English as a super-power among foreign languages in Korea, and researchers' increasing interest in Korean parents' zeal for achieving their children's early bilingualism and willingness to invest heavily in private English education outside of school, insufficient attention has been paid to the role of parental…

This study aimed to facilitate a better understanding of the psychological characteristics of maltreated children by comparing attachment representations between maltreated and non-maltreated pre-schoolers. Participants included 46 maltreated and 48 non-maltreated (children for whom evidence of maltreatment has not been identified or reported)…

Considerable studies have shown the protective effects of breastfeeding on internalizing problem behaviours in early childhood, yet little is known about the groundwork for this relationship. This study attempted to test the hypothesis that improvement of mothers' positive parenting behaviours by breastfeeding can explain the relationship. We used…

This study aimed to examine the effect of attachment security in 17-month-olds on their peer play interactions and behavioural problems at ages 4 and 6 years, respectively, in Korea. By employing structural equation modelling, we analyzed the data of 183 children and their mothers, which were extracted from the Panel Study on Korean Children…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a mother's motivation for providing English education to a young child on the provision of English education and the child's interest in learning English. Also, the mediating role of the type of English education provided (English interaction at home and English private lessons) between a…

This study aimed to examine the effect of early numeracy activities at home on children's mathematics achievement in fourth grade. It also examined the mediating effects of early numeracy competencies and self-efficacy beliefs in mathematics on this relationship. The study used Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2015…

Today, L.S. Vygotsky's concept of a 'zone of proximal development' (ZPD) is often used to just mean best practices in early years teaching, like scaffolding. But in his original theory, the zones linked age periods distinguished by age-specific neoformations -- one of which was the formation of concepts at adolescence. So Vygotsky rejected Stern's…

Background: Research on the relationships between parental factors and children's executive function (EF) has been conducted mainly in Western cultures. Aim: This study provides the first empirical test, in a non-Western context, of how maternal EF and parenting behaviours relate to child EF. Sample South Korean mothers and their preschool…

The relationships between early maternal social support, maternal psychological well-being, the home learning environment, and children's language skills at age 3 in Korean families were examined. We hypothesized that maternal social support would predict children's language development through its effect on maternal psychological well-being and…

The objective of this study is to examine the structural relationships among variables that predict the mathematical ability of young children, namely young children's mathematical attitude, exposure to private mathematical learning, mothers' view about their children's mathematical learning, and mothers' mathematical attitude. To this end, we…

The purpose of this study was to explore South Korean parents' understanding of and desires for music education for their children. Following a constructivist paradigm and qualitative research methodology, data collection involved in-depth interviews, observations, written questionnaires, family music materials, and the researcher's journals. The…

In order to understand how mothers develop their parenting styles under rapidly changing cultural contexts, this study examines and compares Korean upper-middle-class mothers' parental goals and real parenting practices as they reported. For this purpose, face-to-face in-depth interviews with 20 Korean mothers were conducted. By analyzing the…

This study was conducted to examine the impact of Relationship Focused Intervention (RFI) on a sample of Korean mothers and their preschool-aged children with disabilities. Subjects were 18 mothers of children with developmental problems (ages 3-8 years). Ten of these mothers were assigned to an RFI Treatment group and eight to a No RFI Control…