Práticas maternas na educação de pré-escolares

Abstract

There are several factors that can permeate the strategies used by mothers in the educational process of their children. Based on the bioecological perspective, this cross-sectional, qualitative, exploratory and descriptive study aimed to understand the use of coercive or inductive maternal practices as educational strategies in pre-school children. Twelve mothers of pre-school children from cohabiting nuclear families participated in the research, six of them were considered predominantly coercive and six predominantly inductive, responding to individual semi-structured interviews. Twelve post-surgical patients and 12 clinical cardiologists participated in the research, taking part in individual semi-structured. The data were integrated and analyzed based on the principles of the Grounded Theory, with the aid of the Atlas-ti 5.0 software. The results indicated the influence of personal (mothers' perceptions about childhood and childhood experiences), contextual (family and school microsystem, friends, work) and temporal (intergenerationality) aspects in maternal childrearing practices. It was found that the memories of coercive mothers of having been victims of physical, psychological and/or sexual violence in childhood are part of the personal factors that seem to influence the childrearing practices used. These mothers perceived themselves reproducing some of the coercive practices with which they were educated, evidencing their temporality. The significant personal network was also mentioned by coercive mothers as an influential context, from exchanges of experiences with sisters, aunts, friends, grandparents, spouses, professionals and teachers. A difficulty was observed in apprehending and employing positive parenting practices, such as those observed in the school microsystem, used by teachers and other members of the personal network. With regard to predominantly inductive mothers, memories of a child with affection, dialogue, and family interactions prevailed. Some experiences considered negative in the education of the inductive mothers, such as physical punishment and absence of dialogue, were mentioned. However, the participants emphasized the intention to repeat in the education of the children only the practices considered positive. Inductive mothers also mentioned significant personal network as influential in the educational process of their children. The challenges of parenting were also recognized by inductive and coercive mothers who pointed to the lack of recipes or manuals describing how to raise children and signaled the role of parents in setting rules and limits in childhood. It is believed that the data obtained can contribute to a better understanding of the use of certain maternal childrearing practices, and from this, can subsidize intervention programs and promote positive parental practices, considering the numerous factors that can influence the childrearing practices.