IS HAVING A HELICOPTER MOTHER A TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCE? THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HELICOPTER MOTHER ATTITUDE AND TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCES AND LEARNED HELPLESSNESS

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of mothers’ and teachers’ testimonies that conflict with scientific facts and scientific explanations on kindergartners’ judgments. The participants consisted of 104 young children in Şanlıurfa province in Turkey. Their ages ranged from 48 to 79 months, with a mean age of 61.48 months (SD = 5.58). The participants were randomly assigned to the following four groups: 1) Scientific explanation followed by teacher’s testimony, 2) teacher’s testimony; 3) scientific explanation followed by mother’s testimony, 4) mother’s testimony. The children responded to a question about a scientific fact. After the response, they watched their mothers’ or teachers’ testimonies which contradict the scientific fact. Findings revealed that when a scientific explanation was not provided, the children tended to show deference to their teachers’ and especially mothers’ testimony. A week later, a follow-up measurement revealed that this impact did not last a week.