In the master's thesis, the author investigates whether the parental separation in childhood affects the ways in which parents deal with children's unpleasant emotions and self-compassion. She was also interested in the connection between self-compassion and ways of coping, and the connection between these two dimensions and satisfaction. The theoretical part sheds light on the field of emotion, ways of coping with children’s unpleasant emotions, the power of parenthood, self-compassion, and the topic of separation as a traumatic experience.
The empirical part in the form of a quantitative research, in which 224 mothers participated, is intended for the analysis of the results and the obtained findings. The Coping with Children's Negative Emotions Scale (Fabes, Poulin, Eisenberg and Madden-Derdich 2002), the Self-Compassion Scale (Neff 2003a), the Satisfaction with Life Scale (Diener et al. 1985) and the Marital (Partnership) Satisfaction Scale (Schumm et al. 1986) were used.
The first and second findings do not show that separation of parents in childhood negatively affected mothers’ coping with their children’s unpleasant emotions and the development of self-compassion. However, the connection between several dimensions of self-compassion and the dimensions of ways of coping with children's unpleasant emotions has been shown. This means that mothers who are more compassionate and kinder to themselves are more encouraged to express emotions and less often resort to unsupportive ways of dealing with their child’s unpleasant emotions, such as punishing, ignoring, devaluing emotions, and reducing problems. They also seldom provoke the mother's stress response or put her in distress.
The analysis of the data showed that mothers who are more satisfied with their lives and with the marriage or partnership, are more compassionate towards themselves and responding to the child’s unpleasant emotions in more supportive ways. While parental separation in the mother’s childhood did not significantly affect their satisfaction.
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