The purpose of this study was to explain the process of constructing children’s happiness meaning through interacting with the characters of circumstance and individual’s experiences whose mothers have young children.
The research question is as follows: How is the process of children’s happiness meaning construction by mothers with young children?
The study participants were 16 mothers, who have young children. The data was collected through the interviews which conducted over about 10 months from March 2013 to December 2013. The Data was analyzed according to a grounded theory methodology.
The major findings of the study were as follows: The data analysis revealed 188 concepts, 48 subcategories, and 15 categories. The causal condition in the process of mothers’ meaning construction on children’s happiness was ‘A mom have become.’ The contextual conditions were ‘The life is in the pyramid system’ and ‘The life is for children’s success.’ The phenomenon was ‘The internalization of social desire and demands’. The intervening conditions were ‘My roots families’ parenting experiences’, ‘Worrying about happiness in one’s own way’ and ‘Reflecting on which children are happy or not.’ The mothers’ action-interaction strategies were ‘Finding the center of judgement and decision’, ‘Finding the center of contents and means’ and ‘Restructuring me’. The outcomes were ‘Realizing the happiness of early childhood’, ‘The happiness through the process pursuing children’s happiness’, ‘Separating the desire for my children’s happiness’ and ‘Continuous conflicts on desire’.
The core category of the process for constructing the meaning of children’s happiness was ‘The process of finding the self’. And the process had 4 stages, which are as follows. ‘Following unseparated social desire and demands’, ‘Looking around my desire and children’s happiness’, ‘Rearranging interlacing desire’ and ‘Going to find my children’s happiness and my happiness’.
The types of ‘the process of finding the self’ were 7 types as follows. The identification types were conflicting in the boundary, avoiding conflicts, settling and following. The individual pursuing types were active reaction and keeping beliefs. And the last type was self-conflicting.
The study was discussed based on the these results: First, I discussed the characters of the process of children’s happiness meaning construction by mothers with preschool children. Second, I discussed characters and potential for changes of the meaning of which mothers have constructed their children’s happiness. Third, I discussed the characters and potential for changes of mother’s life mode with young children.
The study suggested for parents education based on the results and discussions as follows: The first was the necessities of parental education with the process and activities of reflecting thinking. The second was the necessities of parental education for parents’ self system competences. The third was the necessities of activating the parental education programs which was appropriated for each parent. The last was the necessities which diversify the contents of parental education for authentic parental competence.