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The impact of maternal role conflict on a child’s successful adaptation to primary school: searching for resources in the context of psychological and educational support // Pedagogical Review. 2026. Issue 3 (67). P. 119-131

The present study is aimed at identifying the indirect impact of the role conflict of a working mother on the socio-psychological and educational adaptation of primary school pupils. The relevance of the work is due to the growing number of families where the combination of professional and parental roles creates chronic stress for mothers, which can negatively affect child-parent relations and the process of school adaptation. The central focus of the work is on the development and testing of the author’s scientific and practical program “Psychological support for mothers experiencing role conflict.” The implementation of the program “Psychological support for mothers experiencing role conflict” involves a systematic interaction between the psychologist and the mother, focused on reducing internal tension, harmonizing the role structure and creating a supportive, resourceful family environment for the development of the child. The study examines not only the risks of maladaptation associated with a mother’s role conflict, but also specific areas of preventive and correctional work focusing on strengthening her psychological well-being as a key condition for a child’s success in an educational environment. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the empirical establishment of the relationship between the severity of the role conflict in the mother and the level of adaptive difficulties in a child of primary school age. The practical significance is determined by the author’s scientific and practical program “Psychological support for mothers experiencing role conflict”. The results of the testing confirmed that the author’s program is an effective tool for reducing the level of role stress among mothers, which, in turn, positively correlates with an improvement in the adaptation of their children. The data obtained confirm the need to introduce comprehensive psychological and pedagogical support into educational practice, including the focus of attention not only on children, but also of their parents, in particular mothers, in order to create conditions for optimal adaptation of the child to school.

Keywords: role conflict, working mother, children’s adaptation to school, psychological and pedagogical support, emotional self-regulation skills