Parent’s Coping Strategy Model for Early Childhood Problems
Rina Wijayanti, Mochammad Ramli Akbar, Henni Anggraini, Sarah Emmanuel Haryono and Siti
Muntomimah
Lecturer of Teacher Education Study Program of Early Childhood Education, Universitas Kanjuruhan Malang, Jl.
S.Supriadi No. 48, Malang, Indonesia
Keywords: Assessment, Coping Strategy, Early Childhood Problem.
Abstract: The aim of this study was to describe coping process implemented by parents and to know the benefits and
its constraints and also the processes that have been applied. The coping strategy model for early childhood
issues becomes important, when the coping strategies provided by parents are imitated by early childhood as
a strategy to deal with the problems of early childhood. The strategy coping model given by the parent is
required to provide appropriate learning as the basis for early childhood to overcome the problem in the future.
This study use qualitative research. This research was conducted at 7 (seven) schools in Gugus 9 Sukun
Malang. Based on the results of research that has been implemented, coping strategy model implemented by
parents to overcome the problems of early childhood is to use (1) problem focused coping and (2) emotional
focused coping, through mechanism of problem review first. Emotional focused coping carried out by parents
for early childhood is focused on the ultimate goal and not on solving the problem. The coping strategy
learning process for early childhood also has a process similar to emotional focused coping, where parents
have no more role in the coping strategy learning process in children. The right coping strategy learning
process is needed by early childhood to capitalize the ability of children in dealing with stress and solve
problems in the right way.
1 INTRODUCTION
As is known, early childhood is a group of people
aged 0-6 years. In accordance with Law Number
(UU) 20 Year 2003 regarding National Education
System Chapter I Article I that early childhood
education is a newly born child until the age of 6
years. This age is a very decisive age in the character
formation and personality of children in good living,
including strategies to handle the pressure of the
problem in the right way. Santoso (2011) said that
early childhood education approach are: (1) the
concept of learning while playing, (2) closeness with
the environment, (3) nature as a means of learning,
(4) children learning through their five sense (5) the
concept of life skills, (6) children as active learning,
(7) educators must be close to children with affection,
(8) ethics and aesthetics need to be given simply. Of
the eight principles of early childhood education or
learning can be drawn one conclusion that early
childhood education still touches education in simple
and fun for early childhood, and not given in ways
that are very intensive and torturing children that
cause stress in children at early aged. Pienaar (2010)
argues that similar experiences of children about
stress and coping less explored compared to adults
and adolescents. From the research that has been done
on children, many have used checklists only, which
were originally developed by and for adults or
adolescents or developed for children without
consulting them. Only recently have children begun
to be consulted on issues of concern to them. A
similar opinion is expressed by Akbar (2014), which
describes the unique forms and ways that teachers and
early childhood perform in dealing with the stresses
and problems experienced by early childhood at
school, ie teachers who are able to deal with stress and
problems experienced by early childhood in their own
way and unstructured in the learning process, and
they do not understand that the way is properly
imitated by early childhood.
Stress experienced by children can be of various
causes. Some studies that have been implemented
mention the child's stress can be of various causes.
Child stress can be adapted to a new environment
(Land and Norton, 1985), status as a special needs or
Wijayanti, R., Akbar, M., Anggraini, H., Haryono, S. and Muntomimah, S.
Parent’s Coping Strategy Model for Early Childhood Problems.
In Proceedings of the Annual Conference on Social Sciences and Humanities (ANCOSH 2018) - Revitalization of Local Wisdom in Global and Competitive Era, pages 503-507
ISBN: 978-989-758-343-8
Copyright © 2018 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
503

disability (Russo and Fallon, 2002), chronic illness
suffered or suffered by his brother, and death from
members of his closes family (Ketchell, 1987). For
early childhood stress in Indonesia, some of the first
major causes are over-stimulating stress due to
excessive parental demands on school performance,
national final exams, unsuitable school curriculums,
social stress, and nutritional deficiencies. Data from
Personal Growth shows that 4 out of 5 children in
Jakarta are under stress. The recommended steps to
cope with stress, or coping strategies, experienced by
children also vary. Sadock et al. (2000) provide an
explanation, coping is a general term that refers to the
strategies individuals actually use to manage stressful
life situations involving perceived or actual threats.
The real step begins with the proposed curriculum of
choice preferred by the child, the change of parental
mindset that puts forward the care that is appropriate
to the needs of the child and the value of personal
obsession, better communication between the child
and the parents, and the correct feeding pattern with
providing adequate nutrition for children and not by
providing fast food that can cause obesity and stress
to children due to excess weight (Nilawaty, 2012).
Parents of students as the closes environment of early
childhood, certainly have the greatest role in
implementing coping strategies and learning process.
Parents of students must have their own way with the
competence, capacity and ability that varied
according to the background of parents when dealing
with stress experienced by young children. Such
varied abilities, capacities and competencies, the
researcher aims to assess the coping strategies applied
and the learning process by parents to early
childhood, both on coping strategies, coping
strategies, and coping strategies for early childhood.
From the above description, the focus of this research
is the form of coping strategies applied by parents to
solve early childhood problems.
2 RESEARCH METHODS
This research is conducted by qualitative method,
with naturalistic approach, which aims to understand
the natural context and understand the subject of
research in depth and interpretative, meaning finding
facts. This method is used to see first-hand the reality
of the field conducted by the subject of research
without adding or changing events that occur in the
field or trying to understand the behavior of research
subjects in terms of frame of thinking and acting of
the subject of the research itself.
Data analysis method used is Miles and
Huberman method with 4 (four) kinds of activities in
qualitative data analysis, that is data collection, data
reduction, data model and withdrawal/verification
conclusion, and for data validity, researcher use 3
(three) validity of data, namely: triangulation, peer
review through discussion, and auditing (Miles,
1984).
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The research was conducted in 7 (seven) institutions,
namely: (1) TK PKK, (2) One Roof Kindergarten, (3)
TK Agape, (4) PP Delima, (5) PP Istiqomah, (6) PP
Avocado, (7) PP Happy Tralala (HT), in Gugus 9
Sukun Kota Malang. From the interviews,
observation, and document analysis on the subjects of
the informants, the results were obtained for (1) the
form of coping strategies applied by parents to the
problem of early childhood (2) the coping strategy of
parents for early childhood (3) strategy learning
process coping parents to early childhood, described
as Table 1 follows:
Table 1: Stress and problem in seven institutions.
School
Stress and Problems
Programme
Human Resources
Infrastructure, tools &
equipment
TK PKK
Less quantity and quality of parenting
Toys, hyperactive kids
TK Satu Atap
Less quality of parenting from the nanny
TK Agape
Less effective teacher
communication
Less quantity and quality of parenting
Less toys & kids activity
PP Delima
Not good enough parenting
PP Istiqomah
Kids can’t obey the rule and deny parent
command
Gadget addcited, hyperactive
kids
PP Alpukat
Less quantity and quality of parenting, only
with the nanny
Gadget and smartphone
addicted
PP H.T
Less effective teacher and
parents communication
Not good enough parenting
Coping
Emotional Focused Coping
Problem Focused Coping
Emotional Focused Coping
ANCOSH 2018 - Annual Conference on Social Sciences and Humanities
504

3.1 Form of Coping Strategies Applied
by Parents
The subjects of informants suggested that the main
problems in early childhood are on (1) parenting
aspects, namely the opportunity and the quantity of
care time that is limited to early childhood. Parenting
is a separate child problem, because the subject of the
parent realizes that the behaviors the child
demonstrates with lack of parenting such as defiance,
often sulking and crying, and being spoiled from early
childhood to parents. These problems they try to
overcome by giving time to vacation on every
weekend on a regular basis with the family by
shopping and visiting tourist attractions. The subject
of the informant planned it with the family and felt
adequately able to overcome the problem of lack of
opportunity and the quantity of time that is lacking.
Another way they do is to play with children and get
together with family after coming home from work
activities, although parents just come home until the
night at night. Parents' subjects do not need specific
tools to overcome such parenting problems, because
their focus is on parenting and togetherness. The
subjects do so on a regular basis, and feel sufficient
to overcome the lack of timing. For parenting by
grandparents, grandparents, or nannies, the subject of
parenting is not a problem because it has been
replaced by them. Problem focused coping becomes
the choice of parents who have lack of time for
parenting, with plans to change the time after coming
home from work and on weekends.
Problems (2) communication to children becomes
the next most problems experienced by parents to
early childhood. The problem of communication from
child to parent is because the subject of parent does
not understand the intention or intention of the child's
communication to the parent, either verbally or non-
verbally. The subject of parents feels that
communication problems are children who are unable
to communicate meaning, so that children become
stressed and show behaviors such as crying, yelling,
and rebelling. Parents' subjects also feel that
communication difficulties when parents give orders
or invitations to children in performing activities. The
subject of the parent feels more often ignored by the
child and the subject of the parent has not found the
right way to solve the problem. The subject of a
parent tends to give a high volume command until the
child turns his attention to the parent. Subjects of
parents often feel angry and not trying to find another
way to communicate well to the child. Parent subjects
are often ignored orders and invitations when children
are still actively playing games on smartphones. The
subject of a parent feels that the smartphone given to
the child is a way to show that they are giving their
child the love they want, and the parent's subject
considers communication problems to be different
issues with the smartphone they have given.
Emotional focused coping is chosen by the parent
subject because parents are not looking for a better
and efficient way to tackle communication problems,
and only prioritize the higher volume of
communication to be heard by the child. The last
problem experienced by parents is (3) an active child
and parents feel unable to control his behavior.
Subjects expect parents to be able to order, not a lot
of behavior or activity, able to assist parent activity at
home. Child activities at home are judged by
disruptive parents and unable to be properly
controlled. The subject of parents assesses the
behavior of children in homes that are very active and
categorized by the subject of 'hyperactive' parents.
The subject of the parent feels that the behavior is
caused by a lack of activity, and should not be the
child behaving that way. The subject of a parent has
a way to overcome the problem of the child's activity
by telling him to play outside so as not to interfere
with the work of the parents at home, playing with the
family at home, and giving the smartphone. The
problem of children who are active at home is judged
by the subject of the parent is very disturbing with the
assessment that the child's activity does not support
the activity or work of parents at home. Child
activities at home that are considered disturbing are
not facilitated properly but assessed by the parents
must be muffled because the behavior should not be
done by the child at home. Emotional focused coping
is chosen by parents at home, because parents are
unable to find the right way to facilitate and channel
the activities of children at home. The subject of
parents to assess the behavior of children at home
must be calm and inactive so as not to interfere with
parents.
3.2 The Process of Coping Strategies
for Parents of Early Childhood
The subject of a parent takes the way or process for
coping strategies by using the steps he perceives as
the best way according to his ability. The subject of a
parent focuses coping strategies on the goal to be
achieved in accordance with his wishes. The problem
is felt by the subject of the parent still appears and left
until the child starts growing up or until the child is
able to behave according to the will of the parents.
There is no systematic process to solve the problems
Parent’s Coping Strategy Model for Early Childhood Problems
505

of early childhood experienced by parents. The
process can be seen in the following figure 1:
Figure 1: The process to solve the problems of early
childhood experienced by parents.
The way in which parents solve the problem of
early childhood is not through consideration or
discussion of communication with the parties
concerned. The subject of the parent has the
confidence to solve the problem independently and
understand the early childhood well. New
consideration is needed if it is considered early
childhood problems faced by parents related to health
by going to the doctor. Emotional focused coping
becomes the choice of parents in the process of
solving the problem because the goal is the will of the
parent, the problem is quickly completed, and does
not solve the problem objectively.
3.3 The Process of Learning Coping
Strategies of Parents to Early
Childhood
The subject of the parent does not specifically provide
the design or the way to solve the problem. The
subject of parenting gives the process of learning
coping strategies to early child age only through
communication that try to be woven, and persuasive
gathering with family. Parental subjects also often ask
for 'translation' of the child's communication intent
both verbally and non-verbally, especially to the
mother. The coping strategy learning process
implemented by parents has not been able to solve the
problem systematically and effectively and only
prioritize the goal and focus on how the problem
immediately disappeared. The subject of the teacher
often receives the same problem and seeks to provide
the best way to resolve the problem of the child at
home by giving the children insight. Emotional
focused coping is still the focus of problem solving
for the coping strategy learning process.
4 CONCLUSIONS
From the results of the above research can be
concluded that, the subject of parents still have
enough attention to solve the problem of early
childhood. The way to solve problems still using
emotional focused coping is by putting forward
feelings and wills, but the child's problems still appear
along with not solved the main problems. The coping
process of parents' parents to early childhood is still
carried out by the subject of the parents
independently, and new assistance or consideration is
needed if perceived health-related issues. The coping
process of parents' parents to early childhood has the
advantage of providing a typical way of parenting, but
it is still not able to solve the problem of early
childhood because the subject of the parent is
reluctant to discuss objectively with the relevant
parties. The process of learning coping strategies to
early childhood is not specifically given from parents
to early childhood, but the effort is mirrored by early
childhood in solving the problems encountered.
The subject of the teacher has an important role in
providing learning coping strategies, but still requires
better coping strategies and learning strategies by
prioritizing focused coping and emotional focused
coping more structured. Teacher subjects need a
design for understanding and identifying more
complex issues on early childhood problems at home.
The subject of the teacher feels that the problem of
early childhood in school is the problem that comes
from the home brought to school.
5 RECOMMENDATIONS
Coping strategies implemented by parents should
have a more structured design, and if they are not yet
comprehensively captured, stakeholder involvement
is needed to improve the coping strategy capacity,
both to solve the problem and to learn coping
strategies for early childhood. For teachers, it is
necessary to design and implement strategies for
coping strategy learning for parents and young
children continuously in the hope that coping
strategy, which later can take the form of learning
model or exemplary design implemented by teachers
at school, become the basic capital for children of age
early in implementing coping strategies with other
problems.
ANCOSH 2018 - Annual Conference on Social Sciences and Humanities
506

REFERENCES
Akbar, M. R., 2015. Coping Strategies For Overcoming
Childhood Stress, State University of Jakarta. Jakarta,
thesis.
Santoso, S., 2011. Concept of Early Childhood Education
by Its Founder. Basic Concepts of Early Childhood
Education (Paper V, 2010).
Land, B., Terry, N., 1985. Coping With Separation Anxiety.
Early Childhood Education Journal. Vol.18.
Pienaar, F. G., 2010. New Zealand Children's Experiences
of Stress and Coping, The University of Auckland. New
Zealand, Theses Doctoral.
Russo, T. J., Moira, A., 2002. Fallon, Helping Military
Families Who Have A Child With a Disability Cope
with Stress. Early Childhood Education Journal. Vol.
29.
Ketchell, J. A., 1987. Helping The Young Child Cope with
Death. Early Childhood Education Journal. Vol.14.
Saddock, B. J., Virginia, A. S. K., and Sadock's 2000.
Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry, Lippincott
Williams & Wilkins Publishers. Philadelphia, 7
th
edition.
Nilawaty, C., 2012. Mom, Children Can Also Stress, Koran
Tempo - Healthy Rubric, Sunday, March 25.
Parent’s Coping Strategy Model for Early Childhood Problems
507