Mother Support for Early Childhood Development Suardi Faculty of Science Education Universitas Negeri Makassar Makassar, Indonesia suardi@unm.ac.id Anshari Faculty of Science Education Universitas Negeri Makassar Makassar, Indonesia anshari @unm.ac.id Patta Bundu Faculty of Science Education Universitas Negeri Makassar Makassar, Indonesia patta_unm@yahoo.co.id Sulaiman Samad Faculty of Science Education Universitas Negeri Makassar Makassar, Indonesia essamad@unm.ac.id Abstract—This study aims to examine maternal daily actions/responses given by mothers in facilitating child development at home. This study used a descriptive design involving 147 mothers as respondents who were determined through the non-probability method with purposive sampling technique. The results showed that mothers who were respondents in this study had shown a proper role in facilitating the needs of aspects of child development at home. There were sub-indicators that needed to be maximized, namely: (1) when the child would do something; (2) when child work in activities that are considered dangerous; (3) when child does something and fails; (4) activities available in the form of games; (5) child are not involved enough to do household chores; (6) limit the time children play, (7) availability of children's books in the form of stories or fables; (8) when child makes a mistake in doing something; (9) when children succeed in completing something and/or doing good deeds; (10) not talk much to child; and (11) lack of activity in reading books/telling fairy tales to children. The results of this study recommend the need for interventions to improve maternal knowledge and skills in supporting early childhood development at home. Keywords—mother support, child development, early childhood I. INTRODUCTION Early childhood regarding chronological age as affirmed by the National Association for the Education of Young Children who are in the age range between 0 - 8 years, while in the Republic of Indonesia Law No. 20 of 2003 concerning the National Education System, early childhood is children who are at age range 0-6 years. From a philosophical point of view, early childhood is seen as a period of elasticity and expression of goodness. From the point of view of the characteristics of development as stated [1], early childhood are active learners who continuously get information about the world through their play, they experience to progress through developmental stages that can be estimated, and depend on growth through social interaction, and is a unique individual that grows and develops at different speeds. Whereas from the review of the classification of the child according to the period of development by Santrock [2] , early childhood is a period of development from the end of infancy to approximately five or six years of age. This classification is in line with the opinion [3] which also divides children's time in two periods of development within the range of human development, namely the beginning of childhood that lasts from two to six years, and the end of childhood that lasts from six years until the time comes for the child to become sexually mature Early childhood development is optimally required stimulation from parents, family members, or other adults in their environment, especially because of the time spent by a child more at home. Stimulation is a stimulus that comes from the environment through vision, talk, hearing, touch. In other words, early childhood stimulation through games that involve the five senses of the child. Theoretically, children who are stimulated continuously and repeatedly in every aspect of their development, means they have had the opportunity to develop optimally. Therefore, stimulation becomes a booster that is beneficial for a child's development. The relationship with that, it can be said that stimulation is needed early childhood to hone the potential and optimize its development. The most important party in providing stimulation too early childhood is a mother because of she who has the most time and are emotionally closer to children. Therefore, mothers as caregivers and child protectors essential to provide support. The role of mother is in line with the findings Barreto et al. and Kwaśniewska et al., which generally explain that early support from parents can facilitate child development [4][5]. One of the support needed child in developing all aspects of its development as stated Papalia, et al. [6] is support for expression, obtain reinforcement and appreciation to new abilities acquired, guidance in practice and expanding new skills, and protecting children from inappropriate punishment, as well as language stimuli and other communication symbols. Recent evidence from Dauch et al. [7] shows that one important aspect that needs to be considered in the process of child growth and development is the individual influence that allows children to explore and have fun. Also, other aspects that also need to be considered are elements that reduce children's involvement in play, namely instructions and reinforcement to maintain children's attention. An overview of many published studies on mother support in the context of the family provides evidence that maternal support at home facilitates child development. Parke and Buriel [8] believe that mother can fulfill the 579 Copyright © 2019, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). 1st International Conference on Advanced Multidisciplinary Research (ICAMR 2018) Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research (ASSEHR), volume 227