Abstract:
Parents are the most crucial factor in the formation of children's personalities and
self-concept and that career choices can be regarded as the "implementation" of
these qualities, The family is a place in which children learn to interpret reality.
Parents act as significant interpreters for children information's about the world
..and children abilities. .The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the
influence of parenting styles on children self-concept and career choice among
secondary school students. The study asssed the influence of parenting styles in
shaping their children educational and career decisions. This study covered 16
secondary schools in Machakos municipality with a student population of 6000. A
sample of 4 schools representing 20% of all the institutes was involved in the pilot
study. The remaining 12 schools were involved in the study. From each of the 12
schools, a sample of 30 students per school was selected, giving 360 students. The
study was quantitative in nature. The research design was ex-post facto and was
based on three theories: Attachment theory, Carl Rogers Self concept theory, and
Social cognitive Learning theory. Simple random sampling was used to sample
respondents in 12 schools. Questionnaires were used to collect data from form
three and form four students. The validity of the research instruments was
established through discussion with the supervisors and fellow students and
reliability through pilot study in four schools in the area of study. The data was
analyzed using SPSS computer package. Numerical data on variables was
collected and subjected to statistical analysis. Non-parametric statistics like
correlations were computed to check the significance of the relationship between
the independent variables and dependent variables. The study found that majority
of the parents in Machakos municipality practice authoritative and authoritarian
parenting style. Further it was found that there was a significant correlation
between parenting style and self-concept. Parenting style has been found to
predict child's well-being in the domains of social competence, academic
performance, psychosocial development, and problem solving. The study found
that the students have confidence with themselves as well as they are ready to be
guided by their parents. The analysis indicated that there was no significant
relationship between parenting styles and career choice among secondary school
students. The results indicated that student with authoritative and authoritarian
parents choose engineering, medicine and business which are in investigative,
realistic and social themes. It was found there was a positive relationship between
self concept and students career choice. The findings indicate that parents expect a
lot from their children although they were not involved in choosing of career. The
study concluded that the most practiced parenting style is authoritative and the
least practiced is the neglectful parenting style The study recommended that, the
government should enforce the children act 200 I to control the neglect of children
and enhance commitment to child education; career development should be
enhanced in secondary schools through training career masters who have the
knowledge to counsel and guide students on educational and career choices,
education policy would require to consider parenting styles and use mass
education to create awareness on parenting issues in education and to improve
self- concept of leaner's, parents should be counseled to change to authoritative
parenting.