A STUDY TO ASSESS CHILD REARING PRACTICES AMONG MOTHERS OF TODDLERS (1-3YEARS) IN SELECTED RURAL AREAS OF PUNJAB, INDIA.

Child rearing practices (CRP) refer generally to all interactions between parents and children. These interactions include the parents’ expressions of attitudes, values, interests and beliefs as well as their caretaking and training behavior. In this study a non-experimental descriptive research design was used. A structured interview schedule was used to assess child rearing practices among 50 mothers of toddlers with purposive sampling technique from rural areas of Punjab .The results of the study shown that for toddlers 82% mothers had unsatisfactory level of child rearing practices. Among mothers of toddlers the highest mean percentage score of child rearing practices were found highest in area of play and stimulation (67.70) least in toilet training (50.50%). The relationship of CRP of mothers with demographic variables were tested and found significant with occupation of mother at p<0.05%whereas with other variables were found non-significant (p<0.05%). The intention of the study was to assess prevailing CRP of mothers of toddlers in rural areas of Punjab. This study shows that most of the mothers had unsatisfactory CRP. So formal and informal teaching should be conducted by health professionals for promoting satisfactory CRP.