The Relationship between Personality Traits, Attachment Styles, and Parental Styles with Children's Physical Health

The results of several studies indicate that psychological characteristics of parents have a significant impact on children's mental health, but few researches have focused on the relationship between children's physical health and psychological constructs. Accordingly, the present study aimed to investigate the relationship between personality traits, attachment styles, and parenting styles with children's physical health.

The method of this study was descriptive-correlational. The statistical population consisted of all mothers and fathers of kindergarten children in district 13 of Tehran in the academic year of 2016-2017. Among them 350 parents were selected through multistage cluster sampling. Data were collected using a researcher-made physical health questionnaire for pre-school children, parenting styles questionnaire (Baumrind, 1972), adult attachment scale (Collins & Read, 1990), and NEO five-factor inventory (Costa & McCrae, 1997). Data were analyzed using correlation coefficient and multiple regression analysis.

The results of multiple regression analysis showed that conscientious trait, secure attachment style, authoritative parenting style, facilitative parenting style, and avoidant attachment style could predict 0.27, 0.30, 0.32, 0.34, and 0.35 of children’s physical health, respectively (p< 0.01).

Based on the findings of this study, it can be concluded that personality traits, attachment styles, and parenting styles have a direct and indirect impact on the physical health of preschool children. The implications of the results are discussed in the paper.