Parenting Styles On Academic Achievement Of Students In Social Studies

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

1.1       Background to the study

Family is the setting in which children gain necessary skills, such as decision-making, responsibility, showing respect to others, showing affection and receiving love, fulfilling social roles and expressing creativity (Dil & Bulantekin, 2011) and start their first education. While raising their children, parents use different methods based on various attitudes and behaviours. Attitudes and behaviours that parents have may change according to their personal characteristics, their social and psychological situations, the characteristics of the child and the behaviour that the child displays. All these variables cause parents to display different behaviours which form their parenting style. Parenting style has a crucial role in a child’s social and educational development. Parenting Style is a psychological structure that represents standard strategies parents use in child rearing and includes parental attitudes and behaviours (Kordi & Baharudin, 2010). Parenting style has an effect on self– efficacy, self-respect, self-development, and academic motivation, as well as the behaviours of the individual (Brown & Iyengar, 2008).

Parental attitudes and behaviours that are performed while raising children have a significant impact on children’s future behaviour as well as shaping behaviour at early ages. Children must have healthy relationships with their parents in order to display consistent behaviours in society, to be self- sufficient, to gain necessary social skills, and achieve his/her independence. This is closely related with parental attitudes and behaviours; that is, the parenting styles that the parents adopt. The most common parental attitudes are classified as democratic, authoritarian, permissive, apathetic and overprotective (Akça, 2012).

With democratic parents, not only are children supervised, but there is a sensibility to their immediate needs as well. Parents are immensely sensitive, consistent, decisive, permissive, reassuring and supportive to children (Çağdaş 2006). These parents encourage their children to be independent while they keep controlling the actions of their children. Despite the fact that the final responsibility lays with the parent, the children are also consulted in these families. Therefore, the children believe that their views are also important. It is probable that children with democratic parents are social, autonomous and highly responsible (Baumrind, 1991). Developmental psychologists attest that the most appropriate parenting style for raising children, especially adolescents, is the democratic style (Steinberg, 2001). This type of family environment provides young individuals with opportunities to trust themselves within certain limits and to develop a healthy autonomy (Kopko, 2007). Children raised in this type of family structure can maintain their lives as individuals who have self-confidence, are entrepreneurs, are creative, are able to express their thoughts and produce alternative solutions to problems.

Authoritarian parents display little warmth and a high degree of control. They are strict disciplinarians and use a punitive and restrictive style. Authoritarian parents expect their children to obey rules and instructions set by them without questioning. Authoritarian parents may use expressions such as “You will do that, because I say so”. These behaviours may cause the adolescent to be dependent and rebellious. Rebellious adolescents display aggressive behaviours, whereas obedient/submissive adolescents can be dependent on their families (Baumrind, 1991). It is a parenting style which exists in patriarchal societies (Tuzcuoğlu & Tuzcuoğlu, 2007). These parents consider themselves as representative of social authority (Aksaray, 2012), and they concentrate on children’s mistakes and failures (Gander & Gardiner, 2015), exhibiting excessive authoritarian attitudes (Vural, 2004).

Permissive parents display a high degree of warmth, but they are undemanding and do not have high expectations. According to this permissive and passive parenting style, the only way to show love to adolescents is to indulge all their wishes. Expressions such as, “Of course you can stay out late if you want” may be used by these parents. Permissive parents do not want to cause disappointment by saying no. Therefore, adolescents may make many decisions independently from their parents. This situation may cause difficulties for the adolescents in controlling themselves and may result in tendencies to display egocentric behaviours (Baumrind, 1991). The permissive and loose attitudes of the parents cause children to be spoiled and expect that they will be given priority over the other individuals in the society. When they are not given priority, the individuals feel restless and uncomfortable and cannot adapt to social relationships outside the family (Ekşi, 1990).

With apathetic parents, since parents feel the excitement and enthusiasm of being a parent at low levels, this situation may affect their relationships with their children. They generally evaluate the events independently from their lives while meeting children’s needs and may ignore some needs, even in the strangest situations. This may create a lack of self-control. Moreover, children’s self- respect and proficiency levels may be affected negatively (Baumrind, Larzelere & Owens, 2010).

Overprotective parents control the environment more than required since they perceive it as hostile and dangerous. The factors that make this happen may be the death of the first child, having a difficult pregnancy period or unable to have children in long terms, or having grown up in an apathetic environment during their childhood (Çağdaş ve Seçer, 2006). Parents exhibiting these attitudes may cause their children to be unable to develop their own power since they show a control and sensitivity beyond expectation. Children raised in this kind of environment may show behaviours, such as being excessively independent from others, disappointed, insecure and rebellious (Tuzgöl, 1998). In addition, these individuals cannot develop good self-management of emotions and as a result, they may grow up to be individuals who are indecisive, unsatisfied and irresponsible (Yavuzer, 2000). This study aimed at finding the relationship between parenting styles and academic achievement of students in social studies in junior secondary schools in Uruan Local government Area.

1.2       STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Research has proven that poor parental factors have significant bearing in the life of every child both in school and in the society in which he lives. It has also been observed that the poor performance of students in school by students in both internal and external examinations have been apportioned to the government and the teachers with little attention given to parenting upbringing. The students on their part complaint that their parents mostly detect what they do in both in school and at home. The parents blamed the teacher for not taking their job serious while the teacher turned to blame the government for insensitivity towards the pride of the teachers. Whichever way it is, this study sought to find out the influence of parenting styles on academic achievement of students in social studies in junior secondary schools in Uruan Local government Area.