Family as a Value in the Lives of Six-year-old Children

Abstract

Values play a key role in people’s lives, influencing their choices, goals and objectives, shaping their identity. Values are also responsible for the durability of relationships. The period of middle childhood is the time when the formation of morality begins, and intense changes in the social and emotional areas take place. Therefore, learning more about what is close to the children at this stage of development is worthwhile. In order to find out which values are important to six-year-old children, a study was conducted with the participation of 105 children attending selected Białystok preschools and preschool units at primary schools. The method used in the study consisted in the analysis of work products, and the tool was analysis of drawings. The obtained data made it possible to answer the posed research problem: Do the six-year-old children under study consider the family an important value in their lives? and Are there differences between girls and boys in their perception of the family as an important value in their lives? The study shows that the most important value for the participating children is family. Drawings of family, parents, grandmother, grandparents, siblings accounted for more than ¾ of the works made by the children taking part in the study. In contrast, perceptions of the family as an important value in children’s lives differ by gender. Girls were more likely than boys to point to the family as the most important value for them. Finding out what is important for six-year-old children makes it possible to adjust the process of education and upbringing in such a way that it supports the development of the child, according to the child’s sphere of immediate development.