ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of parenting styles on social adjustment among secondary school students in Lagos Metropolis. To achieve this goal, the researcher formulated four hypotheses to guide the study.

There is a significant influence of authoritative parenting style on student’s social adjustment.

There is a significant influence of religious background on the parenting style of couples.

There is a significant influence of ethnicity on parenting style among couples.

There is a significant gender difference in the social adjustment of youth due to parenting styles.

The sample was one hundred and twenty (120) secondary school students consisting of 60 males and 60 females. The research instrument to test the hypothesis was the four point Likert-type scale of questionnaire.

Independent t-test, the Fisher’’s protected t-test, ANOVA test analysis of variance supported by the two ways analysis of variance were adopted to analyse the data collected.

Based on the results of this study, it found out that a very good parenting style would go a long way in shaping their wards social adjustment, parents should avoid the negative parenting styles in other to prevent their children from becoming violent and aggressive in the society. The study also found out that the permissive parenting styles will equally breed spoilt and wayward children. Equally, parents should avoid being too strict with their children but should adopt the authoritative style where the children can contribute to decision making in their homes which is more democratic in nature.

CHAPTER ONE

1.1Introduction

The study of human development is centrally concerned with understanding the processes that lead adults to function adequately within their cultures. These skills include an understanding of and adherence to the moral standards, conventional rules, and customs of the society. They also include maintaining close relationships with others, developing the skills to work productively, and becoming self-reliant and able to function independently. All of these may be important to successfully rear the next generation. Researchers studying human development have assumed that the family is a particularly important context for developing these competencies, and therefore, they have examined how parents socialize their children to understand variations in adult outcomes. They have attempted to find associations between the way parents raise their children and children’s social, emotional and cognitive development.

It has been assumed that variations in parents’ discipline style, warmth, attention to the needs of the child and parenting attitudes and beliefs all can be characterized in terms of consistent patterns of child-rearing, referred to as a parenting styles, that are systematically related to children’s competence and development.  Research that began in the mid-1980s has focused more on the particular dimensions of parenting that underlie the different parenting styles to provide a more detailed understanding of how parenting influences healthy child and adolescent development.

Arnolds (2002) theorized that a  child tends to behave in the society as they were brought up or reared by their parents. The social adjustment of individual adolescent depends on the way and manner he/she is brought. According to Dike (2003), styles of parenting in the home affects their children’s social orientation in the larger society. A child cannot behave contrary to how he/she is nurtured by the parents/guardians. Dike (2003) is of the opinion that children behave according to the pattern of parental leadership styles. For instance, a child who is brought up through an authoritarian way of parenting, will in most cases, exhibit aggression to his/her peers, and show an attitude of strong reliance on the authority of the adult members of the society. Also a child tend to show excellence in knowledge, well informed and directed when he is brought up by the authoritative parenting style, while he/she could be wayward, rascal, or join the area boy or area girl group if he/she is nurtured by parents who are permissive in their style of parenting; and a child who is reared or brought up by the harmonious parenting style, will relate well in the society with his/her age mates, even with adults. This child who is brought up by the harmonious parents shows good interactions and cordial relationship with those who live near him/her. He/she is not hostile and does not easily break the norms and laid down rules in the society or the community where he lives.

In his early years a child passes through various phases in his relations with others. A young child is essentially tremendous egocentric. He sees himself as the center of the universe. He is a person to be served and waited upon, a person with little patience for anything which blocks his desire or sense of security. He is, above all, a person who has small regard and less appreciation of the rights or feelings of others so long as he himself is served and has his way. Some individuals seem never to lose their egocentric attitude entirely, perhaps because of faulty upbringing or because of unusual environmental circumstances (Rice, 2001).

But the progress of true maturity may be measured in part by an individual’s growing awareness of and interest in, other persons, together with an appreciation of their rights and desires and a willingness to subordinate personal wishes to the greater good of the greater number. Expanding the child’s social consciousness as he moves toward maturity is an important training problem. The outcome represents the difference between a “spoiled disagreeable, poorly adjusted child and a likable youngster who is finding acceptable social adjustments.

1.2Theoretical Background to the Study

1.2.1Theories of Parenting Styles

Baldwin and his colleagues (2000) provided one of the most important early attempts to describe systematic patterns of child rearing. This research conducted in the 1930s and 1940s, followed a group of children and their families longitudinally cover time. They observed parents and children interacting together in their homes, and they also assessed progress in children’s development at different ages. They identified two sets of parental childbearing dimensions that were related to differences in children’s outcomes. As others had done, they distinguished parents along a dimension of emotional involvement versus detachment. They also distinguished between democratic and autocratic parents. Autocratic parents were more likely to simply hand down their rules, while democratic parents were more likely to involve the child in family decision-making and provide explanations for their expectations. Their research demonstrated that democratic parents had children who were less hostile and who worked more effectively in the absence of adult supervision (Maccoby, 1992, Maccoby and Martin, 1993).

There have been many subsequent attempts to improve on Baldwin’s descriptions of parenting styles. The most influential has been the research of Diana (2002) who believed that the democratic style as defined by Baldwin was not sufficient to produce culturally competent adults and that democracy must be combined with authority to produce optimal competence. Beginning in the 1960s, Baumrind identified a set of characteristics that she believed defined competence for children in North American society (Stone, 1991), and then she examined parents’ childrearing beliefs and practices to determine the parenting styles that were associated with those outcomes. She initially developed a typology of child outcomes, but research from 1990 onward has expanded to include four distinct parenting styles such as authoritarian, authoritative, permissive and harmonious.

Stone’s (2003) widely used typology describes parenting styles as varying along two completely independent dimensions of demandingness and responsiveness that, when crossed, yield four parenting styles. Authoritative parents are both responsive and demanding. They set clear, reasonable standards for responsible behaviour that are consistent with children’s developing abilities, are firm in their enforcement, and provide explanations for their positions. They are also kind, warm, and responsive to children’s needs and will negotiate their expectations. Authoritarian parents are demanding but not responsive. These parents place high values on obedience to rules, discourage give-and take between parents and children, and do not take their child’s needs into consideration. Permissive or indulgent parents are responsive but not demanding. These parents are warm and accepting and tolerant of the child’s impulses. They also make few demands on the child for mature behaviour, do not use much punishment and avoid exerting their authority. More recently, permissive parents have been distinguished from rejecting-neglecting parents, who also do not make many demands on their children, primarily because they are disengaged and thus are neither demanding nor responsive (Spoch, 1999).

Spoch’s (1999) research indicates that authoritative parenting is most effective in leading to healthy adjustment for children. Authoritative parenting consistently has been associated with a wide range of positive adolescent outcomes, including better academic performance, increased competence, autonomy, and self-esteem, more advanced moral development, less deviance, anxiety and depression and a more well-rounded orientation to peers (Macobby and Martin 1993), Steinberg (2001). Spoch has proposed that authoritative parenting is most effective because of parents’ high expectations and support for mature behaviour. Much of the research on parenting styles in relation to child and adolescent adjustment has been conducted on white middle-class families, but since the start of the 1990s, researchers have become increasingly interested in ethnic and cultural variations.

1.2.2Theories of Social Adjustment

One of the normal tendencies of an adolescent is to attach greater importance to the attitude and opinion of others, especially those of his own age, than he does at any other time in the developmental sequence. Adolescence is a time of expanding and urgent interest in persons of the opposite sex, both as person and as biological organisms. It is a time of seeking an appropriate social role and satisfying social relationships which will be in accord with concepts of self. It is, above all else, a time when personal adjustment, both present and future, is closely related to social success and to ability to play the social role in which the individual would like to see himself (Runner, 2000).

A youth is an individual without experience, still in fact, a child, who finds himself in what is to him a rapidly expanding adult’s world. He finds himself with new physical urges, new physical growth, new interests and values, and new concepts of self. He finds, unwittingly, that he has turned his back on much that used to be important to him. The process of growing up is both difficult and strange, particularly in its relations with others, either contemporaries or adults. From his social explorations he must finally emerge with mature and adequate social attitudes, standards and skills if he is to find any degree of social adjustment as an adult.

In his early years a child passes through various phases in his relations with others. A young child is essentially tremendous egocentric. He sees himself as the center of the universe. He is a person to be served and waited upon, a person with little patience for anything which blocks his desire or sense of security. He is, above all, a person who has small regard and less appreciation of the rights or feelings of others so long as he himself is served and has his way. Some individuals seem never to lose their egocentric attitude entirely, perhaps because of faulty upbringing or because of unusual environmental circumstances (Rice, 2001).

But the progress of true maturity may be measured in part by an individual’s growing awareness of and interest in, other persons, together with an appreciation of their rights and desires and a willingness to subordinate personal wishes to the greater good of the greater number. Expanding the child’s social consciousness as he moves toward maturity is an important training problem. The outcome represents the difference between a “spoiled disagreeable, poorly adjusted child and a likable youngster who is finding acceptable social adjustments.

An examination of the location within a community of a child’s friends will illustrate the foregoing point. As a very small child his friends consist of relatives and children who are brought to the house to visit. When the child is able to go about a bit, it will be found that he has a concentration of friends in the immediate vicinity of his home, but seldom anywhere else. A little later the friends will be somewhat more scattered, but all in the same or the adjoining block. By the time he enters elementary school his friendships may extend for two or three blocks but the end of the first year it will be found that he knows children scattered over most of the entire area served by his grade, although his best friends are most likely to be those living in his immediate neighbourhood. This dispersing process will be accelerated with the individual’s entrance into junior and senior high school, until a map of the dispersion of the adolescent’s friends will find them spread rather widely over the community, and even outside of it, although still with a strong concentration within the neighbourhood. This condition will be particularly marked insofar as there are strong socio-economic, racial, or national differences existing within the community (Anderson, 2000)

1.3Statement of the Problem

The social adjustment of children these days has been negative in the society; this has been attributable to the type of parenting in which these highly maladaptive children were reared and nurtured. Studies carried out by Strausser (2001), showed that children’s social adjustment in the community is not far fetched from the way they are brought up by their parents. According to this finding, children who are socially deficient, are mostly reared by parents whose styles of parenting were basically authoritarian in nature. Children whose parents are very autocratic and authoritarian, become highly aggressive, violent and autocratic to their peers in the school and at home. This is because, they had learnt aggression and violence from their parents who used force and high handedness in bringing them up in the home.

Also, a child becomes way-ward in the society because he is brought up by the permissive parents who applied I-don’t-care attitude in bringing up the child. Little wonder why most children of these days are recalcitrant, obstinate, delinquent, harlotic, bullies, armed robbers, fighters, examination cheats, depraved-minded, alcoholics, drug abusers, addicts, violent demonstrators and destructive individuals in the school and at home; cultists and gangsters etc. These vices are anti-social behaviours that are perpetrated in the society by those whose parents may have lacked the correct parental styles and patterns in child-rearing.

This study therefore, set out to investigate the problem of parenting styles on the social adjustment of secondary school adolescents in Lagos State.

1.4Purpose of the Study

The main purpose of this study is to examine the influence of parenting styles on social adjustment among secondary school students in Lagos State.

Other specific objectives of the study include to investigate:

1.       Whether there are difference in the social orientation of students who were brought up by authoritative parents and those brought up by the authoritarian parents.

2.       Whether there is gender difference in social orientation of students as a result of parenting styles.

3.       Whether the socio-economic status of parents affect their styles of parenting.

4.       Evaluate whether the religious backgrounds of parents affect their styles of parenting.

1.5Research Questions

These research questions were asked in this study:

2.            Is there any difference in the social adjustment of students who are brought up under authoritative parenting style and those brought up under authoritative style?

3.            Is there any gender difference in the social adjustment of students as a result of parenting styles?

4.            To what extent will the socio-economic status of parents differ in their parenting styles?

4.            Will the religious backgrounds of parents affect their styles of parenting?

1.6Research Hypotheses

These hypotheses were formulated and tested in this study:

1.            There is no significant influence of authoritative parenting style on students’ social adjustment.

2.       There is no significant influence of religious background on the parenting style among couples.

3.       There is no significant influence of ethnicity on parenting style.

4.       The is no significant gender different in the social adjustment of students in schools.

1.7Significance of the Study

This study will be beneficial to the following individuals:

1.            Parents: Parents, no doubt, are those who nurture and take care of children after giving birth to them in the home. With this findings and recommendations made in this study, parents would be well informed. Pertaining to different levels of patterns of parenting in the home. This study, no doubt will enable parents/guardians to be able to know how best to rear their children and wards, it will help them to be able to identify those recommended parenting styles that will give the children or wards good rearing process and upbringing in the society. This is because children reared in proper ways by good parenting styles, will be different from the children reared under bad or harsh parenting styles. With the application of this recommended styles of parenting, parents would be able to rear children who would be very respectful to them and the society. Because this admixture of democracy/authoritarians give the children the opportunity of partner well with their parents while being reared up. 

2.            Children: The children, especially the youth in the society would benefit from the recommendations of this study because it will help them to understand the way of bringing them up as adolescent. With this study, children would be able to identify the best parenting styles or patterns in the family. With this study also, children would be enable to know that they ought to be controlled and obedient to their parents.

3.            Teachers: Teachers would no doubt, be able to understand more, the different aspect of parenting styles. Some teachers are parent also, they will be exposed to the essence of child-upbringing by reading this work. This study will create important knowledge on parenting styles to the teachers. Teachers will also be able to learn the more, that good parenting styles would be beneficial to both the teachers and the school system where both the teachers and the children are found. This is because, if the children are well brought up, they would be good and right thinking individuals in the society and the school.

4.            The Society: The society will benefit from this study because there will be great impact of this study on the individual in the society. Also both the new researchers and students who want to carry out new research on topics related to this study will find this study a reference point or material.

1.8    Delimitation

This study covers the influence of parenting styles on social adjustment among secondary school students in Lagos State.   

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