Panić, Opsenica Kostić: CHILD WELL-BEING FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF PARENTS

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Tanja Panić
College of Vocational Studies for Preschool Teachers
and Business Computer Scientist - Sirmium
Sremska Mitrovica1
Jelena Opsenica Kostić Original Scientific Paper
Faculty of Philosophy, Niš2 UDC: 37.018.262

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CHILD WELL-BEING FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF PARENTS

Abstract: Subjective well-being, satisfaction with life and quality of life are some
of aspects indicating mental health. Measuring these aspects in a child
population is relatively a new concept. Assessment of child functioning at
younger ages is limited by methodological problems and by the fact that
preschool children are not able to give necessary information by themselves.
This research has been carried out in order to gain insight into the level of
preschool children well-being. For that purpose assessments of parents, as
persons who know their children well, have been viewed in the research.
Research sample consisted of 59 boys and 50 girls and the same number of their
parents who made assessments. In the period when the research was carried
out the children were from 6,2 to 7,3 years of age. The instrument used in this
research was a part of Parents’ form of Global Well-being Scale from Child
Health Questionnaire (Landgraf, Ware Jr., 1996) which was adapted according
to the culture to which the examinees belonged. The scale estimating global
child well-being was used in the investigation. The reliability of the scale is
satisfactory and amounts to .726 expressed in Cronbach α. Obtained results
lead to a conclusion that an average preschool child who participated in the
investigation has a high level of well-being (21, 4) according to his/her parents’
assessments. The assessment is partly conditioned by a person making an
assessment, his/her subjectivity and motivation.

Key words: CHQ, general well-being, preschool child, parents’ assessment.

THEORY SECTION

Promotion of positive psychology over the past three decades raised an interest in
optimal human behaviour which emphasizes terms such as: subjective well-being,
psychological well-being and life satisfaction. Initial psychological research studies on
well-being made conclusions based on absence of psychopathological symptoms (Gilligan
& Huebner, 2002). On the other hand, World Health Organization defined health as a
state of complete physical, mental and social well-being as early as in 1964. Subjective
well-being model is also one of the six models which positive psychology uses to define
subjective health. Psychological and subjective well-being must be viewed through

1
E-mail:vs.tanja.panic@gmail.com
2
E-Mil: jel.ops@gmail.com

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positive indicators, such as self-satisfaction and satisfaction with own life, which
represents life satisfaction (Huebner, 2001). Life satisfaction is defined as “global
assessment of a person’s quality of life” (Pavot, Deiner, Colvin, & Sandvik, 1991, p.150,
according to Huebner, 2001). However, well-being shouldn’t be considered a synonym for
mental health, but rather its integral part. A person can be mentally healthy, but with
lower level of subjective well-being, due to the influence of environmental factors or
his/hers current mood. Also, person can have high level of subjective well-being and have
impaired mental health at the same time (Diner,at al. 1997) .

First, indirect, empirical research studies of well-being started in 1960s in America,

through assessing quality of life. Quality of life is defined as a broader term which
included respondent’s subjective assessment as one of primary indicators and integral
components. Contents of the subjective component were the closest to the term of well-
being.

Review of modern psychological literature shows that many research projects on life
satisfaction, subjective well-being or quality of life in various domains and areas of adult
people’s life were conducted. When it was realized that such research could be important
for children and youth as well, research started focusing on well-being of this population.
Instruments which were used had significant limitations, particularly because they viewed
well-being as a one-dimensional phenomenon (e.g., Perceived Life Satisfaction Scale:
Adelman, Taylor, & Nelson, 1989; Students' Life Satisfaction Scale: Dew & Huebner, 1994,
according to Huebner, 2001). Result obtained by these instruments was a single test score
that, being such, concealed important information. However, work in this field led to
improvement of instruments which now have multidimensional and more informative
approach to understanding of well-being at child/adolescent age.

One of the instruments specially constructed for children and adolescents and which
measures physical, emotional and social well-being of children and adolescents from
various aspects is Child Health Questionnaire (CHQ, Landgraf et al., 1996). Questionnaire
is designed for global assessment of health status and it is primarily used in clinical
research studies which assess children’s health and well-being. It contains 14 scales based
on different concepts of health: physical, emotional and social, which add up to a global
score and give a multidimensional profile used for assessment of health status of children
and adolescents (Waters et al., 2000). Until now instrument has been translated to 13
languages, used in numerous research studies and applied to various populations (Drotar
et al., 2006). A form of the questionnaire in which parents or a person well acquainted
with a child give all required information was designed, since preschool children lack the
ability to report on their state, feelings and thoughts. Conclusions on physical and mental
health of children of this age are then made based on these assessments. Although this
method of data collection is burdened by significant methodological constrains, usually it
is the only way to obtain the information necessary for making a conclusion on
functioning of children at this age.

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Well-being

Subjective well-being is a term that refers to how people assess their own lives and it
includes variables such as life satisfaction, positive mood and absence of depression and
anxiety. Subjective well-being assessment can be cognitive, if a person makes assessment
on his/hers global life satisfaction or if he/she assesses certain segments of life. According
to Diener (1984), assessments person makes on his/hers life can be in the form of affect, if
a person reports on pleasant or unpleasant emotions he/she experiences as a reaction to
his/hers life. A person with low level of subjective well-being often experiences
unpleasant emotions and is more dissatisfied with his/hers life. On the other hand, person
with higher level of subjective well-being experiences more pleasant than unpleasant
emotions and is mostly satisfied with his/hers life.

The easiest way to describe and to research subjective well-being is through its integral
components. These components are formed by parsing the term “well-being”.
Components are mutually correlated and are as follows: life satisfaction, global
evaluation or assessment of satisfaction with certain aspect of life, frequency of
experiencing pleasant emotions or pleasant affects and frequency of experiencing
negative emotions or negative affects.

Life satisfaction – refers to cognitive assessment of own life as a global personal

judgement (Diener, at al., 1997). Person’s life satisfaction can be determined by assessing
satisfaction in certain domains of life. There are different life domains which are assessed,
such as satisfaction with family, friends, job, finances, school, partner, marriage, structure
of leisure time, self etc. There is a difference between different age groups considering
the importance given to certain domains. For example, domain of satisfaction with
friends is valued the most in adolescent period (Gilligan & Huebner, 2002), but
satisfaction with marriage or job becomes a priority in later periods of life.

Affective components – pleasant and unpleasant affect, pleasant and unpleasant emotions
and how frequently they are experienced, are second and third component of subjective
well-being. During component analysis there were certain doubts concerning the type of
emotional experience: is it intensity of an emotion or frequency of experiencing an
emotion that should be measured. These two aspects of emotional experience have
different implications for well-being. It was estimated that frequency of experiencing an
emotion was more important than intensity, because it was easier to measure and it
wasn’t affected by temperament of a person. Persons that experience pleasant emotions
of higher intensity experience unpleasant emotions of higher intensity as well. Anyway,
strong emotional experiences are relatively rare, so the probability of them having large
impact on well-being is low. Everything leads to a conclusion that psychometric
characteristics of measures which are based on frequency of experiencing emotions are
much better because it is easier to determine frequency than intensity of emotions,
which are highly affected by subjective assessment (Diener, 1984).

The concept of subjective well-being proposed by Diener significantly contributed to

better understanding of well-being, because it is easier to perceive and examine the term
when it is parsed, which was made possible by structuring it.

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In this article global well-being is based on the concept given by the author (Landgraf et
al., 1996) of the instrument which was used – Child Health Questionnaire – and as such it
refers to affective component of well-being.

Because of their developmental characteristics preschool children aren’t able to

independently report on their well-being, so conclusions can only be based on indirect
assessments. These assessments are usually made by their parents who, being members
of children’s primary family, represent basic elements of the micro system in which
children grow and learn. Parents have two roles: they are role models and figures that,
through educational methods and learning, make conscious impact on formation of
behavioural patterns and affective functioning, as well as on formation of their child’s
value system. On the other hand, since parent is best acquainted with needs and abilities
of his/her child, he/she is a key factor in cooperation with educational system. Upbringing
and education of a child, especially at lower chronological age, is a result of teaming and
quality of cooperation between parents and a preschool institution, and later on between
parents and a school and its representatives who have direct contact with a child.

METHOD
Research problem

Research subject is well-being of preschool children. Research problem is how parents

assess global well-being of their children. This research was developed and conducted as
a part of larger longitudinal research and with an aim to gain insight into quality of
children’s functioning and level of observed aspects of mental health.

Research tasks

1. Examine the level of global well-being in the research sample;

2. Examine if there are differences between sexes in relation to level of global well-
being;
3. Examine if there are differences in assessments of global well-being depending on
socio-demographic variables of parents and family in which child lives.

Research instruments

Global Well-being Scale is a part of a larger questionnaire - Child Health Questionnaire

(CHQ, Landgraf et al.,1996). Child Health Questionnaire (CHQ, Landgraf et al., 1996) is a
multidimensional instrument consisting of specially constructed scales, designed for use
with children aged 5 and older. CHQ is used to assess children’s physical, emotional and
social well-being. Here are some of the areas covered by the questionnaire: global health,
physical functioning, changes in health status of a child, family situation, child’s
behaviour, mental health, self-esteem etc. There are two methods of data collection,
from the perspective of child’s parent or legal guardian (short and long form, CHQ-PF50 i
CHQ-PF28) or self-report of children aged 10 or older (CHQ-CF87). This research uses one
of the scales from the abovementioned instrument – Global Well-being Scale, which
consists of 5 items constructed as five-level Likert-type scales. Higher score indicates

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higher level of global well-being. Parent estimates how frequently child experiences
pleasant and unpleasant emotions over a time-limited period.

Sample

Total research sample included assessments of 109 parents (one parent per child).
Sample included 50 girls (45,9%) and 59 boys (54,1%). During the research period children
were aged 6,2 to 7,3 years. All children attended preparatory preschool programme. A
convenience sample was used.

Processing of data

Basic descriptive indicators of used scale are presented. Significance of differences

between arithmetic means of global well-being levels on subsamples was examined by t-
test and ANOVA.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Descriptive data for Global Well-being Scale are shown in Table 1

Table 1. Arithmetic mean, standard deviation, minimum, maximum and reliability on Global Well-being
Scale
N minimum maximum AM SD Cronbach
α
Global Well-being
109 15 25 21,40 2,269 ,726

Results show that average score of all respondents on this scale is 21, 40 out of 35 points,
which is higher than average.

Obtained results show that preschool children included in the research sample have
higher level of global well-being. This leads to a conclusion that children more frequently
experience pleasant emotions and less frequently unpleasant emotions.

Table 2 shows descriptive indicators of five items from the used scale. Since these items
have opposite direction they were harmonized during statistical processing. Direction of
first four items was changed in such way that higher score indicates higher level of well-
being, i.e. less frequent occurrence of described behaviour and emotions.

Table 2. Arithmetic means, standard deviations, minimum and maximum of individual items from
Global Well-being Scale

How often: N minimum maximum AM SD

child felt like crying 109 3 5 3,93 ,619

child felt lonely 109 3 5 4,52 ,632
child acted nervous 109 3 5 4,34 ,784
child felt upset 109 3 5 4,52 ,661
child felt cheerful 109 3 5 4,09 ,570

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Based on results shown it could be concluded that parents who made assessments about
global well-being of their children, assessed that feelings or states such as uneasiness or
loneliness had the lowest frequency of occurrence in the period before the research.
Parents assessed that crying was the most frequent type of behaviour and cause of
unpleasant emotions. None of the parents chose answers “always” or “most of the time”
on the first four items or “rarely” and “never” on the fifth item.

No statistically significant differences were found while examining level of global well-
being in relation to sex, children’s place of residence and observed socio-demographic
characteristics of parents.

Statistically significant difference was only found between parents who differ in their
assessments about cohesiveness of their families. Results of the variance analysis are
shown in the Table 3.

Tabela 3. Variance analysis and level of family cohesion

∑ of deviation squares ss AS² F p
Global between groups 130,880 3 43,627 10,769 ,000
well-being within groups 425,359 105 4,051
Total 556,239 108

Results of the post-hoc test (Scheffe) are shown in the Table 4 to show how assessments
of global well-being differ in relation to assessments of family cohesiveness.

Table 4: Post-hoc test: differences between assessed level of family cohesion – Global Well-being
AM differences SG p Confidence interval
cohesion (I-J)
lower upper
(I) (J)
Global well-being good -4,068 1,175 ,010 -7.407 -,729
moderate very good -4,294 1,050 ,001 -7.278 -1,311
excellent -5,495 1,047 ,000 -8.469 -2,521
good moderate 4,068 1,175 ,010 ,729 7,407
very good -,226 ,677 ,990 -2,150 1,697
excellent -1.427 ,672 ,218 -3,335 ,481
moderate 4,294 1,050 ,001 1,311 7,278
very good good ,226 ,677 ,990 -1,697 2,150
excellent -1,200 ,416 ,045 -2,381 -,020
moderate 5,495 1,047 ,000 2,521 8,469
excellent good 1,427 ,672 ,218 -,481 3,335
very good 1,200 ,416 ,045 ,020 2,381

Statistically significant differences (p<.05) in the level of assessed global well-being

between parents who assess ability of their family members to get along as moderate (on
a scale from 1 to 5, it is 2) and children whose parents assess the same ability as better
were found. Children from the first group have lower level of global well-being. There is
also a statistically significant difference (p<0.5) in the level of assessed global well-being
between children whose parents assess ability of their family members to get along as
excellent (on the scale from 1 or 5, it is 2) and children whose parents assess the same
ability as very good. Children from the first group have higher level of global well-being.

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CONCLUSION

Subjective well-being, psychological well-being or life satisfaction as an aspect and an

indicator of mental health, according to principles of positive psychology, were a subject
of interest of many research studies. Most of the studies researched these aspects on
adult population. This type of research was conducted, but less often, on adolescent
population. Research studies dealing with these aspects in child population are relatively
rare. There are many reasons behind that fact, but primary reason is that characteristics
of certain developmental period limit the abilities of children of younger age, which
causes them to be unable to verbally report on their emotions, thoughts and personal
opinions. In this research we examined well-being of preschool children, which was
defined as frequency of experiencing pleasant and unpleasant affects. Parents’ form of
Global Well-being Scale from Child Health Questionnaire (Landgraf, Ware Jr., 1996) was
used. As mentioned before, there are certain limitations when researching children of
this age, so we had to use indirect assessment. Assessments were made by parents,
because it could reasonably be assumed that they were well acquainted with their child.

Average score on the Life Satisfaction Scale of this sample is 21,40, which indicates that
observed preschoolers have high level of global well-being, i.e. they more frequently
experience pleasant emotions. Most frequent state with prevailing unpleasant affect
shown by preschoolers, according to assessments of their parents, is crying, which is
expected, as well as socially acceptable. According to parents’ assessments, states with
the lowest frequency of occurrence are uneasiness and loneliness. Based on these results
we can conclude that parents asses global well-being of their children as high. Subjectivity
of parents could be discussed, as well as their desire to evaluate themselves through this
assessment. In order to correct parents’ assessments it would be necessary to get
opinions of other persons as well. Reliability of Global Well-being Scale is expressed as
reliability of internal consistency type and is α=.726 and as such it is satisfactory.

Presumption of this article was that sex of a child is an important factor of its well-being.
However, no statistically significant differences were found. This leads to a conclusion
that parents of preschool children assess well-being of girls and boys as equal, that there
are no differences at this age or that they are concealed because of the small sample or
characteristics of a person making an assessment.

Statistically significant differences in the level of global well-being between children

whose parents have different assessments of family cohesion were found. Parents who
assess the ability of their family members to get along as moderate (on five-level scale
they choose 2) make lower assessments of their children’s level of global well-being. We
also found differences in assessments of level of children’s global well-being between
parents who assess it as excellent and very good. It could be concluded that assessment
of quality of relationships in a family is in a certain way connected to assessment of level
of global well-being, but, because of the draft of the research, that relation wasn’t
completely researched. It remains an open question if bad family relationship affects
children’s well-being or parents’ assessment of level of well-being.

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General conclusion of this research could be the following: preschool age is a very
important life period for a child and being such it is very interesting for research. Since
institutional type of upbringing and education of a child is most commonly introduced at
this age, it should be noted that cooperation between parents and representatives of
educational system is very important for child’s later development and quality of life.
When child enters formal educational system, requests are presented to the system to
adjust to every individual child, its traits and its needs, which implies cognitive, social and
affective aspect of child development.

Parent, as a person who is best acquainted with a child, becomes the most important
assistant to educational system representatives, whose objective is to adjust the system
to every child.

In order to get important information and make important conclusions about the
observed population it is necessary to develop ways to overcome methodological traps.
Comparing assessments made by different persons could be one of the ways to
contribute to that matter. Some other variables, such as self-esteem and extraversion,
could certainly be related to global well-being, which could be a subject for future
research.

REFERENCES

• Diener, E. (1984). Subjective Well-Being. Psychological Bulletin, 95 (3), 542-575.

• Diener, E., Emmons, R. A., Larsen, R. J., & Griffin, S. (1985). The Satisfaction with Life Scale.
Journal of Personality Assessment, 49, 71-75
• Diener, E., Suh, E., & Oishi, S. (1997). Recent Findings on Subjective Well-Being. Indian Journal
of Clinical Psihology, 24, 25-41.
• Drotar, D., Schwarty, L., Palermo, T.M., & Burant, C. (2006). Factor structure of the Child
Health Questionnaire-Parent Form in Pediatric Populations. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 31
(2), 127-138.
• Gilligan, T.D., & Huebner, E.S. (2002). Multidimensional life satisfaction reports of
adolescents a multitrait-multimethod study. Personality and Individual Differences, 32, 1149-
1155.
• Huebner, S. (2001). Manual for the Multidimensional Students' Life Satisfaction Scale.
Preuzeto 18. marta 2005. sa World Wide Web
http://www.psych.sc.edu/pdfdocs/huebslssmanual.doc
• Landgraf, J. M. (1996). Child Health Questionnaire (CHQ). Preuzeto 14. jula 2007. sa World
Wide Web http://www.outcomes-trust.org/instruments.htm
• Waters, E., Salmon, L., & Wake, M. (2000). The Parent-Form Child Health Questionnaire in
Australia: Comparison of Reliability, Validity, Structure, and Norms. Journal of Pediatric
Psychology, 25, 381-391.
• Williams, W.G., McCrindle, B., Cullen-Dean, G., Cai, S., Culbert, E., & Ashburn, D. A. (2001).
Summaru of the Child Health Questionnaire completed by patients in the Transposition
Study. Preuzeto 19. avgusta 2007. sa World Wide Web
http://www.chssdc.org/file/chq1218.pdf

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Biographical note

Tanja Panić is a Professor of a group of psychology subjects at the College of Vocational

Studies for Preschool Teachers and Business Computer Scientist in Sremska Mitrovica.
She works also as a senior judicial expert in the field of psychology. She has completed
the advanced training in Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT). She was also a
regular member of the Interdepartmental Committee on Additional Support to Children
and Pupils. She is a frequent participant at academic conferences. Her interests lie in
researching subjective wellbeing, aspects of mental health in populations of preschool
children, adult and senior persons, and especially of the adolescent period. Address:
Visoka škola strukovnih studija za vaspitače i poslovne informatičare Sirmijum, Street
Zmaj Jovina 29, 22000 Sremska Mitrovica,Srbija. Email: vs.tanja.panic@gmail.com.

Jelena Opsenica Kostić is an Assistant Professor at the Psychology Department of the

Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Niš. For over ten years, she has been working
on subjects related to child development and development through the lifespan and
student researches in the field of developmental psychology. Topics she has been most
frequently dealing with are perceived parental behavior, resilience, and subjective
wellbeing of adolescents. During the last two years she has been interested in
researching the phenomenon of cyber bullying. Address: Filozofski fakultet, Street Ćirila i
Metodija 2, 18000 Niš, Serbia. Email:jelena.opsenica.kostic@filfak.ni.ac.rs.

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