Importance of Maternal Persistence in Young Children's Persistence

Masahiro Imafuku; Atsuko Saito; Kenchi Hosokawa; Kazuo Okanoya; Chihiro Hosoda

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.726583

Importance of Maternal Persistence in Young Children's Persistence

Front Psychol. 2021 Oct 14:12:726583. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.726583. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Masahiro Imafuku¹, Atsuko Saito², Kenchi Hosokawa³, Kazuo Okanoya⁴, Chihiro Hosoda^{3

4}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Early Childhood Education and Care, Faculty of Education, Musashino University, Tokyo, Japan.
² Department of Psychology, Faculty of Human Sciences, Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan.
³ Advanced Comprehensive Research Organization, Teikyo University, Tokyo, Japan.
⁴ Department of Life Science Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.

Abstract

Persistence of a distant goal is an important personality trait that determines academic and social success. Recent studies have shown that individual differences in persistence involve both genetic and environmental factors; however, these studies have not examined the role of maternal factors on a young children's persistence. The present study examined whether mothers' persistence is associated with persistence in children aged 3-6 years. In addition, the associations between mothers' persistence/parenting style and children's self-control/social development (prosocial behaviors and difficulties) were examined. Our results showed that maternal persistence is essential for the child's persistence. Children's self-control and social development were also associated with the mothers' persistence and parenting style. Our findings suggest that a young child's persistence may develop under the influence of a familiar adult (i.e., mother) and characterizes their social development, highlighting the importance of persistence in parenting.

Keywords: parenting styles; persistence; preschooler; self-control; social development.