Mothers' developmental expectations for young children in the Philippines

The purpose of the study was to investigate the developmental timetables of rural and urban mothers in the Central Visayas, Philippines, Examined were mothers' expectations for children's development (physical/perceptual-moto r, cognitive, and psychosocial) and mothers' child rearing practices, as in fluenced by four selected variables (child's gender and ordinal position, m other's education, and rural or urban residence). The total sample size was 303 mothers [153 of rural residence and 150 urban] in two provinces. Mothe rs responded to a structured questionnaire which was read to them aloud by trained interviewers who then recorded the responses. All the mothers had c hildren between 4-6 years old; equal numbers of male and female children we re included, and the entire economic and educational ranges were represente d. MANOVA results showed significant main effects of all four variables on maternal expectations of child development and on maternal child rearing pr actices. Also, significant interaction effects of residential location and maternal education on mothers' expectations of children's physical/perceptu a1 motor development were found (F[2,256] = 3.05, P = 0.05). Significant in teraction effects also were found of maternal education and the child's ord inal position (F[4,256]=2.95, P = 0.02) on maternal expectations of childre n's psychosocial development. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights res erved.