Self-care and deviance in elementary school-age children

✍ Scribed by Ann Pettine; Lee A. Rosén

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 103 KB
• Volume: 54
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0021-9762
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1097-4679(199808)54:5<629::aid-jclp9>3.0.co;2-f

✦ Synopsis

Fourth-, fifth- and sixth-grade students were surveyed to investigate whether self-care was related to self-reports of behavioral or attitudinal deviance, liking for school, or both. The Child Self-Care Measure (CSCM), a multiscale self-report instrument, measured self-care as a developmental task with four major dimensions: temporal, physical, structural, and psychological. Self-care in general was not linked to deviance. However, increases in psychological self-care were strongly correlated with reductions in children's liking for school. Additionally, children in self-care who cared for younger siblings for more than a year reported more deviant behaviors than those without responsibility for younger siblings; children in the care of older siblings less than 16 years old for more than 4 years reported more tolerance for deviance than peers in self-care without older sibling caregivers. Findings support earlier speculations that children in self-care may not be developmentally ready to take responsibility for elementary school-aged siblings. Results also indicated that although girls in self-care manifest problems earlier than boys, long term self-care may be more problematic for boys than girls.