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Abstract: The concept of self-efficacy has proved useful for studying preschool children. These children show high self-efficacy, optimism and will to acquire new experience. It is useful to support children in a positive way, because we build a good and steady base for resisting in various life events and situations. Parents are the most important factor for cultivating self-efficacy in their children. The manner in which parents mediate different experiences to children and how they lead them through new and stressing situations, basically influences the style, how they will deal with new and stressing situations when they grow up. The present study examines these statements by means of qualitative methods.
Key words: self-efficacy, preschool child, child, stress resistance
INTRODUCTION
This study is concerned with self-efficacy which in our culture appears as a convenient component of self-concept in order to successfully cope with our social environment. Self-efficacy is part of self-concept, but it develops and is defined in interaction with the social environment. The focus of interest is on the development of self-efficacy in pre-school children (aged 3 to 6 years) and concerns not only themes of social psychology and psychology of personality, but also includes developmental psychology.
From the research point of view, I direct my work to an examination of the level of self-efficacy and the influence of experience exerted by parents on self-efficacy in pre-school children. It concerns mainly a description of possibilities how to "harden" the child, how to promote its healthy development, and which mistakes to avoid in order to balance protection and risk in favor of protection. In this way we may anticipate prob- lems in further development which would then demand more complex means of intervention with a lower probability of positive results.
The way we lead the child through various situations of life is important for supporting a healthy development especially in stress situations. In principle, stress situations are not undesirable or hostile (as is sometimes understood) because they affect homeostasis and may even cause psychical damage. On the contrary, one can say that stress mobilizes the organism, stimulates learning and, searching for new ways, leads to higher performance of muscles, nerves, intellect, emotions and will, and stimulates the development of personality. Though, at the same...