Social Stratification and Parent-Child Emotional Communication

Abstract

Background: Healthy and frequent communication of emotions between parents and children helps in enhancing children’s emotional development. It is important for parents to encourage their children to talk about not only positive emotions but negative one’s as well. Change in Socioeconomic Status can be seen as a potential source of variation in parent-child emotional communication. The aim of this research was to study how parents-child emotional communication differs in different social stratifications. A sample population of N=60 children aged 8-12 years were enrolled in the study along with their parents. A study questionnaire consisting of 75 items using a Likert Scale was used to collect information on parent-child emotional communication separately from fathers, mothers and children. A total of 60 participants with a mean age of 10.26 ± 1.44 years along with their parents were included in the study. The study found that fathers from Upper class scored the highest 267.50 ± 0.70. Similar results were seen for child- father, mother, and child-mother. There is enough evidence to conclude that socioeconomic status effects the parent-child emotional communication channel.