The Relationship of Parental Thought Processes to Child Rearing Practices (Flexible, Language Structure, Predisposition to Failure, Success, Creative).

Previous studies of child abuse have dealt with, the issues of environmental and parental psychopathology. Interventions based on these factors are time consuming, costly and often temporary. Because the problem of child abuse and neglect is increasing rapidly, there is a need for a simple, direct method of intervention that deals with the daily experiences expressed in statements made by parents. This study utilized such an approach. The theory of language developed by B and ler and Grinder (1975), which is derived from generative grammar (Chomsky, 1965), was used in this study. Their theory is designed for analysis and description of sentences in an objective manner. In utilizing this model to analyze statements made by abuse-neglect parents and non-abusive parents, it was found that these statements reflected some basic differences between these two groups. The method used was an interview process using a questionnaire with open ended questions regarding stress situations in the respondents' lives. The respondents were volunteer clients from the Department of Social Services. The abuse-neglect group were from Protective Services and the control group from Aid to Families with Dependent Children. Findings: (1) Measures of flexible thinking are closely related for both non-abusive and abuse/neglect parent subjects. (2) The non-abusive parent group differed from the abuse/neglect group on all variables; (a) flexible selection of words, (b) acceptance of problems, (c) active behavior and thought, (d) intrinsic motivation, (e) problem improvement, and (f) singular problems. (3) The abuse/neglect group reported only multiple problems in contrast to non-abusive parents who tended to report only single problems. (4) Intrinsic motivation and problem solution were highly related variables for non-abusive parents whereas there was only a marginal relationship between the two variables for the abuse/neglect group. It was concluded that: findings are congruent with the theory that language influences outcome in problem situations by a prophecy fulfillment mechanism. That is negative statements that refer to an action or process not yet begun, will have a subtle influence on those results with a predisposition to failure.PhDEducational psychologyUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/160745/1/8521010.pd