CHILDREN’S PERSPECTIVES ABOUT THEIR FAMILIES, EMOTIONS AND SUBJECTIVE WELLBEING IN RAWALPINDI AND ISLAMABAD PAKISTAN

Abstract

Broad consensus among scholars holds that children have historically been treated as passive objects of research in global academic literature, and only recently their subjective, holistic, longitudinal and contextual experiences are being considered. There is a dearth of literature on children’s self-understanding of their subjective wellbeing in Pakistan. Studies found that children wellbeing is determined by their family’s capability of fulfilling significant physical and economic needs of the children. Although family’s economic status has been considered a significant predictor of children’s subjective wellbeing, yet the quality and quantity of parent child interaction has been meaningfully associated with the self-esteem, social competence, self-concept and educational outcomes of children. Numerous theories support this argument including attachment theory and Bronfenbrenner’s ecological system theory. This study finds out the relationship between emotional attachment and subjective wellbeing of children in Pakistan. By employing closed-ended questionnaires of the Children World Study, data from 3626 respondents were collected from Rawalpindi and Islamabad. The data were analyzed in SPSS using frequencies, bivariate correlation and multiple regression analysis. We evaluated the understanding of children about their emotional attachment with family and subjective wellbeing, and determined the influences of emotional attachment with their family. Findings suggest that Pakistani children possess high subjective wellbeing, across different age groups and gender. Emotional and intimate familial relationship has more value as compared to the economic wellbeing in Pakistani cultural context.