| Abstract [eng] |
Background and purpose. The psychosocial adaptation of children who were separated from their parents has long been an object of psychological research (Rutter, 1974). The effects of separation for children, due to parental migration, has attracted the attention of researchers in different countries, but the results are not consistent, they are difficult to compare because of different selection criteria, age of participants, and methods. The aims of our research were 1) to compare the psychosocial adjustment (as reflected by emotional and behavioral problems) of children whose parents were working abroad, with a Lithuanian representative sample, and 2) to assess the associations between psychosocial adjustment of children with parents abroad, absent parent's involvement in child-rearing, and socioeconomic characteristics of these families. Material and methods. 99 families participated in the study (52 boys and 51 girls, mean age 9,0 years). For comparisons, prior data from the Lithuanian controls were used (Lukauskienė & Kajokienė, 2006, 2007). The psychosocial adjustment of children was measured using CBCL and TRF (Achenbach, Rescorla, 2001). Results and conclusions. The results of the study showed that (a) the psychosocial adjustment of children with one or both parents working abroad, did not differ significantly from the adjustment of children from the Lithuanian controls; (b) the associations between psychosocial adjustment of children, socio-economic characteristics, absent parent's involvement in child-rearing, and the age of children when the parent left, were not statistically significant. These results have to be interpreted with caution due to the limitations, which are discussed in the article. |
