ABSTRACT
Difficulties of Korean Fathers Raising Young Children
in Vietnamese Multicultural Family
and their Changes from Small Group Parent Education
Bang, Hye-Kyung
Dept. of Education
The Graduate School
Sungshin Women's University
T...
ABSTRACT
Difficulties of Korean Fathers Raising Young Children
in Vietnamese Multicultural Family
and their Changes from Small Group Parent Education
Bang, Hye-Kyung
Dept. of Education
The Graduate School
Sungshin Women's University
This study is to verify the difficulty of Vietnamese female marriage immigrant family fathers who takes care of the infants and young children and the role of parent mentors in the course of small-group parent mentoring programs supporting fathers and the transition aspects of fathers.
First, what are the difficulties of the Vietnamese female marriage immigrant family fathers experiencing from the rearing the infants and young children?
Second, what are the roles of the parent educators shown from the small-group parent mentoring programs?
Third, how is the transition aspect of Vietnamese female marriage immigrant family fathers in the process of participating in small-group parent mentoring programs?
This study used culture description research methodology in understanding the difficulties of Vietnamese female marriage immigrant family fathers’ home, and the change process of the fathers who joined small-group parent mentoring programs. From April 30 to September 16, 2012 the researcher applied small-group parent mentoring programs to 7 Vietnamese female marriage immigrant family fathers living in Gyeong-gi province who have the infants and young children. The small-group parent mentoring programs were given at a psychology counsel center located at a church in P city. The mentoring programs included the discussion and demonstration process to help them understand their culture and child-rearing methods. During the research period there were total 20 times of parent mentor programs for which one session took 90 to 120 minutes.
Interviews for data collection were given four times. Fifteen times first interviews, person to person, were given from April 30 to May 5, 2012 to 10 fathers hoping to take part in small-group parent mentoring programs. Second personal interviews were given from May 6 to August 19, 2012. Total 56 personal interviews were given to 7 among 10 who participated in parent mentoring programs. Third interviews were three group interviews for mothers given from August 26 to September 2, 2012. Fourth group interviews were given twice from September 9 to 16 of 2012 to research participant parents. Moreover, 4 research participant families joined the family camp for the multiculture family from August 1 to 4, 2012. The researcher also joined the camp and applied participant observation.
The collected data during research period including 20 parent mentor program data, 76 in-depth interviews, observed data, on the spot note, quick write-ups, journals and the like were categorized and then analyzed.
Major results shown from the research are as follows according to the
research questionnaire:
First, Vietnamese female marriage immigrant family fathers rearing the infants and young children were facing the following difficulties. In the process of child-rearing fathers replacing wives lacking mothers’ role took mostly the place of mother-oriented jobs. So they were experiencing inertia or lack of confidence from the negative identity. Fathers were confronting difficulties as their wives’ continuous financial support for maiden home family and their inability towards responding primary needs of their children. Within Vietnamese marriage immigrant family there were inefficient communication, cultural differences and differences between child-rearing knowledge. The financial difficulty caused from child-rearing was one major factor giving difficulty to Vietnamese marriage immigrant family. Fathers working at unstable jobs felt heavy burden from ever increasing education expenditure.
Second, under the course of constituting the contents of small-group parent mentoring programs and applying parent mentoring, parent educators made parent mentoring contents which included Vietnamese marriage immigrant family fathers’ understanding Vietnamese culture and the subjects for child-rearing. As parent educators provided the place for fathers expressing their isolated and repressed sentiment and let Vietnamese female marriage immigrant family members feel comfortable fathers could participate the parent mentoring programs with comfort. During classes parent mentors took the role of information givers to fathers for the understanding Vietnamese culture and the knowledge about rearing the infants and young children. Parent educators did the role of the communicator by way of sharing emotional consensus through exchanging feelings with fathers. By parent educators’ providing the opportunity to practice and discuss what fathers learned fathers were encouraged to improve child-rearing attitude. By parent mentors’ providing fathers with the opportunity of reflective thinking and supported repeatedly the inefficient parts, parent mentors supported fathers to have confidence in paternal role.
Third, before participating small-group parent mentoring, fathers didn’t have confidence and struggled in the process of child-rearing in paternal role from the negation and anger of their own life. By joining small-group parent mentoring programs they participated actively in child-rearing and had confidence in paternal role in due process. Fathers who have changed during parent mentoring programs let mothers know the child-rearing methods and helped wives actively with the Korean language acquisition. Change like this led to less struggle between husbands and wives concerning the child-rearing. By participating small-group parent mentoring program, Vietnamese female marriage immigrant family fathers became to know how to cut child-rearing expenses and how to use the information about the support service suitable for their family.
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