It is a human right to lead a happy life. In the process of growing and developing, children have the right to be happy, along with the right to survive and protect. Development and participation. However, factors that threaten children, such as viole...
It is a human right to lead a happy life. In the process of growing and developing, children have the right to be happy, along with the right to survive and protect. Development and participation. However, factors that threaten children, such as violence and neglect, are constantly increasing, and children's subjective feelings of happiness due to stress caused by sexual orientation and dissatisfaction with life due to appearance and materialism are among the lowest in the world. Accordingly, this study selected parenting attitudes, friendship, self-esteem, and academic performance among the factors that can affect children's happiness. The purpose of this study was to verify whether parents' parenting attitudes and friendships, which play an important role in children's lives, affect happiness through self-esteem and academic performance, and to determine whether there is a significant difference between the 4th grade group of elementary school and the 1st grade group of middle school in all channels. To this end, it was analyzed by using data from the first year (2018) of the Korean Children and Youth Panel Survey 2018 (KCYPS 2018). A total of 4,940 subjects were selected, with 2,472 in the fourth grade of elementary school and 2,468 in the first grade of middle school. For data analysis, SPSS Statistics 25.0 and AMOS 22.0 statistical programs were used, and descriptive statistical analysis and correlation analysis of variables were performed, respectively, and the structural relationship between variables was confirmed through a structural equation model. Bootstrapping was performed to verify the mediating effect, and the difference according to the group between the fourth grade of elementary school and the first grade of middle school was confirmed through multi-group analysis. The main findings and implications of this study are as follows. First, it was found that parents' positive and negative parenting attitudes and friendships had a direct impact on children's happiness. Therefore, it is necessary to provide a window for parents to treat children with a parenting attitude of warmth, support for autonomy, and provision of rescue, and to help them have a change in rejection, coercion, and inconsistent parenting attitudes, and social welfare interventions such as school counseling programs that can enhance children's interpersonal relationships should be provided to improve the quality of friendships. Second, it was found that self-esteem had a mediating effect on the effect of parents' parenting attitudes and friendships on children's happiness, but academic performance was found to have no mediating effect. Therefore, society needs to pay more attention to the happiness of childhood, as well as institutional efforts to improve parents' parenting attitudes and the quality of friendships, and children's self-esteem. Third, it was found that the influence of parents' parenting attitudes and friendships on children's happiness by mediating self-esteem and academic performance did not vary depending on the school level. In other words, in the influence of parenting attitudes and friendships on children's happiness, self-esteem had a significant mediating effect in both elementary and middle school student groups, but academic performance did not show a mediating effect regardless of the difference between school levels. These results suggest that there should be an expansion and continuation of practical intervention to improve the happiness of all children regardless of school level.
In subsequent studies, it will be possible to clarify the causal relationship between variables using longitudinal data, and to derive more diverse research results by using another variable, both personal and environmental, of children. In addition, through qualitative research that enables in-depth exploration, new research results can be discovered to promote an in-depth understanding of children's happiness.