Influence of parental contextual factors on parenting practices and styles among parents in Eldoret, Kenya

Abstract

Parenting is a lifelong commitment, and has a pervasive impact on children’s development. Significant improvements in the health and well-being of children, including the level of child treatment, cannot be achieved without strengthening the skills, knowledge, and confidence of parents in parenting. The study investigated the influence of parental contextual factors such as parental age, parental gender, marital status, level of formal education and occupation on parenting practices and styles. It was guided by the following objectives: To establish how parental contextual factors such as parental age, parental gender, marital status, level of formal education and occupation influence parenting practices and to determine how parental contextual factors influence parenting styles. The study was guided by moral internalization, parenting styles approach and ecological theories. The study adopted ex post facto research design. Data for this study was collected with aid of questionnaire from 200 parents who had children aged below 18 years in two purposively selected sites using systematic random sampling techniques. Questionnaires were used to collect data in which the quantitative data from closed ended questions was analyzed descriptively and using inferential statistics while data resulting from open-ended questions were analyzed thematically. Inferential statistics applied in the testing of hypotheses were chi-square and The Pearson Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient which was done at the level of significance of α = 0.05 using the Statistical Package of Social Sciences (SPSS). Based on descriptive analysis results, the study concluded that parental age, parental gender, level of formal education and occupation did not influence parenting practices. However, marital status was found to have an influence on parent-child relationship. In addition, on the hypothesis testing results in which the p value of the test statistics were greater than the level of significance (p > α) for the independent variables parental age and marital status the study concluded that those variables had no significant relationship with parenting styles. However, parental gender was found to have a strong negative significant influence on parenting styles based on the hypothesis testing verdict based on the obtained result of p < α for that hypothesis. Further, the study found out that the level of formal education had a positive association with parenting styles. Occupation was also found to have significant influence on parenting styles. The study concludes that parent-child relationship is very crucial in child development and is influenced by marital status. Also the study findings proved that parenting styles are very important part of parenting as they are influenced by parental gender, level of formal education and occupation. The study recommends that parental contextual factors must be taken into account when coming up with policies or programs on parenting.