Parenting Styles and their Impact on the Behaviour of Secondary School Students in Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, Nigeria

Abstract

The study investigated the “Parenting Styles and their Impact on the Behaviour of Secondary School Students in Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, Nigeria”. The descriptive survey research design was adopted for this study. The population of the study was twelve thousand seven hundred and thirty-nine (12,739) SS2 students. Six hundred and sixty one (661) respondents were sampled to represent the entire population. Based on Research Advisor, six hundred and sixty one (661) of questionnaires were retrieved. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), version 23 was used to analyze the data collected to find out the frequencies, percentages and mean scores. The study employed both Descriptive and Inferential Statistics. The research questions were answered using descriptive statistics such as means and standard deviation. At the 0.05 level of significance, the t-test for independent samples was used to test the null hypotheses. Where the calculated p-value was less than the specified level of significance (0.05), thus indicating that there was a significant difference, the null hypothesis was rejected. In contrast, where the calculated p-value was equal to or greater than the specified level of significance (0.05), indicating that there was no significant difference, the null hypothesis was retained or accepted. The study found that authoritarian parenting style had positive impact on the behaviour of children and wards and indulgent parenting style had negative impact on the behaviour of children and wards. The study therefore recommended that The Ministry of Education should organize guidance and counseling programs in the communities to sensitize and educate authoritarian parents to become more flexible with their children. Also that the Ministry of Education should organize guidance and counseling programs in the communities to sensitize and educate indulgent parenting to become more engaged in the lives of their children, indulgent parenting should be setting more rules for their children.