The objective of this study is to recognize the influence of parents' child-rearing attitude on the self-esteem of non-handicapped teenagers with handicapped siblings.
This study researched the correlation of social demographic background and the parents' child-rearing attitude affected by the factor of handicapped offspring. It also researched the correlation of the self-esteem of non-handicapped siblings and social demographic background. Furthermore, the effect of the parents' child-rearing attitude on the self-esteem of the non-handicapped siblings was also studied.
The study concludes that the parents' child-rearing attitude affects the self-esteem of non-handicapped siblings. Especially, the mothers' attitude in achievement/non-achievement areas had negative effects on the whole self-esteem of the non-handicapped children. This conclusion means that the indifference of the parents, the underestimation of the non-handicapped children's ability and low expectation could have negative impacts on building up the self-esteem of non-handicapped siblings. Brothers tend to build more positive self-esteem than sisters after participation in intervene programs. Finally, the lower their age is, the better chance there is for children to have positive self-esteem. Therefore, experiences, related to the handicapped siblings, have negative effects on building up self-esteem.
Thus, development of programs focused on the importance of parent-child relationship for families with handicapped children is needed, especially to help non-handicapped adolescent siblings build up better self-esteem. Also, development of programs which can suggest proper attitudes and roles of the parents is needed, so that the parents will be able to understand the experiences and emotions of non-handicapped teenage children better.
Furthermore the development of proper measuring standards for child-rearing attitudes and self-esteem considering the characteristics of non-handicapped siblings is urgently needed. Therefore, follow-up studies based on more various social-demographic groups, using more developed measurement standards focused on the characteristics of non-handicapped siblings, are required.