INFLUENCE OF PARENTING STYLES ON ADOLESCENTS’ SELF-ESTEEM IN SELECTED SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN ABEOKUTA NORTH LOCAL GOVERNMENT, ABEOKUTA, OGUN STATE, NIGERIA
ABSTRACT
The concept of self-esteem is an area of psychology that has gained considerable attention, but for many years has also caused much confusion, as exactly what it encompasses and how it develops, has been unclear. Low self-esteem can be a major risk-factor in mental and emotional health problems such as suicide, alcohol and drug abuse, and violence. Studies have shown that one of the most important factors affecting adolescents’ self-esteem is their parents’ style but with varied results. Therefore, this study was designed to assess the influence of the different parenting styles in adolescents’ self-esteem.
The study was a cross-sectional study which used quantitative approach for data collection. The study population comprised of adolescents in selected secondary schools within Abeokuta north local government, Abeokuta, Ogun State. Multi-stage random sampling technique was adopted in selecting samples from the population. In the first stage, 4 private secondary schools and 4 public secondary schools were selected by simple random sampling. This was followed by a stratified random selection of students from classes based on the requested number of instruments the schools were willing to accept. A total of 200 adolescents were gotten across the selected private schools and 213 adolescents were gotten across the selected public schools. A self-administered questionnaire was developed using constructs from the Belsky’s model of the determinant of parenting.
Respondents were male (45.8%) and female (54.2%) whose age ranged from 12-19 years, majority (96.1%) were of the Yoruba tribe while there were (0.7%) and (3.2%) respondents of Igbo and Hausa respectively. Findings revealed that respondents exhibited a high level of self-esteem (17.56 ± 0.19). Parental involvement in respondents’ daily activities was assessed to be high which can be said to influence respondents’ self-esteem. It was also determined that of all the parenting styles adopted by respondents’ parents, the authoritative (β = 0.585; P < 0.05) and authoritarian (β = 0.270; P < 0.05) had positive association with involvement, indicating these parenting styles encompasses increased parental involvement.
This study concluded that parenting styles have influence on adolescents’ self-esteem, further practice of strict, demanding style of parenting (authoritative) has an increased influence on adolescents’ self-esteem and parents talking about issues with their adolescents in a supportive manner instead of imposing punishment (authoritarian) also have a positive association with increased self-esteem. These are the two parenting styles adopted by Nigerian parents as influenced by culture of instilling discipline in the younger adolescents and this has proven to be instrumental in developing a high self-esteem among the selected Nigerian adolescents. This study recommends that religious organizations’ should be involved in the training and retraining of parents in improving their children’s self-esteem.
Keywords: Self-esteem, Parenting styles, Adolescents, Personality, Abeokuta