THE PURPOSE OF THE PRESENT STUDY IS TO INVESTIGATE THE EFFECTS OF PARENT EDUCATION ONTHIRD GRADE CHILDREN&#039 / S SOCIAL SKILLS. THE SAMPLE OF THE STUDY COMPOSED OF 29 THIRD GRADE STUDENTS&#039 / PARENTS. THE 3X3 EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN WITH TWO TRAINING GROUPS AND ONE CONTROL GROUP AND THREE MEASUREMENTS (PRE, POST AND FOLLOW-UP) WERE USED. THE EXPERIMENTAL GROUPS RECEIVED A 10 WEEK PARENT EDUCATION WHICH WAS DEVELOPED BY THE RESEARCHER WHILE THE CONTROL GROUP DID NOT RECEIVE ANY TRAINING. IN ORDER TO ASSESS SOCIAL SKILLS OF CHILDREN THE SOCIAL SKILLS RATING SYSTEM-PARENT FORM (SSRS-P) WERE USED. THE RESULTS REVEALED THAT PARENT EDUCATION WHICH INVOLVED FATHERS HAD A SIGNIFICANT EFFECT ON CHILDREN&#039 / S SELF-CONTROL DIMENSION AND TOTAL SOCIAL SKILLS SCORES IN TERMS OF PARENT PERCEPTION. HOWEVER, CONTRARY OF THE EXPECTATION THE GAIN WAS NOT MAINTAINED AFTER THREE MONTHS FOLLOW-UP. IN ADDITION, FATHER INVOLVED GROUP IMPROVED IN SELF-CONTROL AND RESPONSIBILITY DIMENSION AND FATHER UNINVOLVED GROUP IMPREOVED IN SELF-CONTROL DIMENSION AND TOTAL SCORE OF SOCIAL SKILLS AND THE IMPROVEMENTS MAINTAINED AFTER THREE MONTHS FOLLOW-UP.

Child maltreatment is one of the most severe problems that child mental health experts deal with. Limited studies on this field suggest risk of child maltreatment is higher for children with ADHD and disruptive behavior disorder. There is also great need for investigating child maltreatment and its risk factors in Turkish society. In the present study, with the aim of understanding maternal attitudes and actual practices of discipline styles, qualitative and quantitative analyses were run with 125 children and their mothers. Results indicated that mothers of children with ADHD combined type were more prone to approve physical and verbal punishment as discipline styles, consistently / children with ADHD combined type were more frequently and more severely exposed to both physical and verbal maltreatment. Maternal approval of verbal maltreatment as a discipline style predicted disruptive behaviors of children and disruptive behaviors of children predicted increased v maternal approval and practice of physical punishment as a discipline style. Maternal scores on perception of childhood sexual abuse, emotion focused coping style, personality characteristics, and psychopathologies were found to be predictive for maternal approval and actual practicing of abusive discipline styles. Maternal approval of physical punishment was predictor of child depressive symptoms and it was a mediator between oppositional behaviors and depressive symptoms.

The purpose of the present study is to assess the potential individual characteristics and environmental protective factors that promote academic resilience among impoverished eighth grade elementary school students in Turkey. The sample consisted of 872 (439 girls, 433 boys) students enrolled in 6 low SES inner-city public elementary schools in Ankara. Five instruments, Demographic Data Form, Resilience and Youth Development Module (RYDM), Scholastic Competence Scale (SCS), Beck Hopelessness Scale (BHS), and Nowicki-Strickland Locus of Control Scale (N-SLCS) were used in the present study. Grade point averages (6th, 7th and 8th grades) of students were used as the measure of Academic Achievement. Exploratory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used to analyze the data. The results of the present study revealed that home high expectations, school caring relationships and high expectations, along with the peer caring relationships were the prominent external protective factors that predicted academic resilience for the adolescents in poverty. Considering the internal protective factors, having positive self-perceptions about one&rsquo / s academic abilities, high educational aspirations, having empathic understanding, internal locus of control and being hopeful for the future were positively linked with the academic resilience of adolescents in poverty. Conversely, the external factors of home caring relationships, community caring relationships and high expectations, and peer high expectations, and internal factor of problem solving ability were negatively linked with academic resilience. These factors seem to be vulnerability factors for impoverished Turkish adolescents although they are generally accepted as the protective ones.

This study aimed at revealing the mediational role of mothers&rsquo / psychological adjustment between mothers&rsquo / parental attitudes and their preschool children&rsquo / s behavioral problems relationship. The participants were 204 married mothers, 64 fathers, 195 chief teachers and 25 assistant teachers of preschool children aged between 1&frac12 / - 5 years-old, who are attending nurseries in different neighborhoods of Ankara. Prior to the main analyses, the reliability analyses of Child Behavior Check List - 1&frac12 / - 5 (CBCL &ndash / 1&frac12 / - 5), and Caregiver-Teacher Report Form (C-TRF) were conducted. These analyses yielded many significant coefficients, though the strength of the correlations varied from low to high. Following the reliability analyses, Hierarchical Regression Analyses were performed to test the mediational role of mothers&rsquo / psychological adjustment between their parental attitudes and children&rsquo / s internalizing, externalizing, and total behavior problems relationships. For these analyses, the variances accounted for by children&rsquo / s and mothers&rsquo / demographic characteristics were controlled. Results revealed that, &lsquo / Rejection of the Home Making Role&rsquo / measure of PARI and Trait Anxiety measure explained the largest amount of variances while predicting the children&rsquo / s behavioral problems. According to hierarchical regression analyses, rejecting attitudes of mothers significantly associated with children&rsquo / s internalizing, externalizing, and total behavior problems. Moreover, mothers&rsquo / rejecting attitudes significantly associated with their trait anxiety which is in turn associated with children&rsquo / s behavior problems. However, after controlling for the effect of trait anxiety, the relationship between mothers&rsquo / rejecting attitudes and their children&rsquo / s behavior problems was disappeared. Therefore, mothers&rsquo / trait anxiety was found to mediate their rejecting attitudes and preschool children&rsquo / s internalizing, externalizing, and total behavior problems. Results were discussed by referring the relevant literature.

THE PURPOSE OF THE STUDY WAS TO INVESTIGATE THE EFFECT OF A COGNITIVE BEHAVIORAL GROUP COUNSELING PROGRAM ON THE LEARNED RESOURCEFULNESS LEVEL AND AUTOMATIC THOUGHT PATTERNS OF FIFTH GRADE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS. THE STUDY CONSISTS OF TWO PHASES. IN THE FIRST PHASE, CHILDREN&#039 / S VERSION OF SELF-CONTROL (C-SCS) AND COGNITIVE TRIAD INVENTROY FOR CHILDREN (CTI-C) WERE GIVEN TO 232 FIFTH GRADE STUDENTS IN TWO ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS IN ANKARA. THE DIFFERENCES AMONG THE AUTOMATIC THOUGHT PATTERNS (CTI-C) OF THE STUDENTS BY GENDER AND LEARNED RESOURCEFULNESS (C-SCS) WERE EXPLORED USING A 2 (GENDER) X 2 (HIGH-LOW LEARNED RESOURCEFULNESS) FACTORIAL MANOVA. RESULTS SHOWED THAT STUDENTS WHO WERE HIGHLY RESOURCEFUL SCORED SIGNIFICANTLY HIGHER IN TOTAL, NEGATIVE VIEW OF SELF, FUTURE AND WORLD AND POSITIVE ViEW OF SELF, FUTURE AND WORLD. AN EXPEROMENTAL DESIGN WITH ONE TRAINING AND TWO CONTROL GROUPS (PLACEBO-ATTENTION AND NO-TREATMENT) AND THREE MEASUREMENTS (PRE, POST AND FOLLOW-UP) WERE USED IN THE SECOND PHASE OF THE STUDY. 45 STUDENTS (27 MALES, 18 FEMALES) WHO HAD LOW LEARNED RESOURCEFULNESS AND NEGATIVE AUTOMATIC THOUGHT PATTERNS WERE RANDOMLY ASSIGNED TO ONE TRAINING AND TWO CONTROL GROUPS. &#039 / COGNITIVE BEHAVIORAL GROUP COUNSELING PROGRAM&#039 / WAS IMPLEMENTED TO THE COGNITIVE BEHAVIORAL TRAINING STUDENTS&#039 / OVER A PERIOD OF 15 SESSIONS. THE SESSIONS WERE HELD ONCE A WEEK AND LASTED IN 90 MINUTES. STUDENTS IN THE PLACEBO-ATTENTION CONTROL GROUP PLAYED NON-THERAPEUTIC GAMES LiKE LOTTO, GAME OF NAME-CITY-ANIMAL-PLANT, HANGING A MAN, SILENT MOVIE AND SOLVED SOME PUZZLES. THE NO-TREATMENT CONTROL GROUP SUBJETCS DID NOT RECEIVE ANY TRAINING. REPEATED MEASURES ANALYSIS OF VARIANCE WAS USED TO ANALYZE THE DATA COLLECTED IN THE EXPERIMENTAL PHASE OF THIS STUDY. CONTRARY TO THE EXPECTATIONS, THE RESULTS INDICATED THAT &#039 / COGNITIVE BEHAVIORAL GROUP COUNSELING PROGRAM&#039 / DID NOT IMPROVE LEARNED RESOURCEFULNESS LEVELS AND INCREASE POSITIVE AUTOMATIC THOUGHT PATTERNS OF STUDENTS.