A Study of Parenting Style in Relation to Emotional Intelligence Value Orientation and Social Adjustment among Secondary School Students of Delhi
The Indian family plays a key role in the socialization process of the child (from infancy to childhood and even to the extent of adulthood) and uses family specific values to bring up the child. Children who are the carriers of the value certainly have an important role in the family system. Children learn the culture and values within the bosom of a family. It means the children raised by certain specific set of culture are reflection of familial and cultural values. Therefore, socially learned norms and values offer standards which parents usually use to direct their own interaction with their children. As, this interaction or process of socialization process is bidirectional in nature, therefore, parents conveys the socialization messages to their children, but their children vary in their level of acceptance, receptivity, and internalization of these messages. Processes of socialization of child generally do depend upon the beliefs, values, goals held by the parents who are generally are passed from one generation to the next. Philosophers and developmental psychologists are always interested in understanding and unravelling the intricacies of socialization process by which parents attempt to transmit their values, goals, skills, and attitudes to their children. Behaviourist and Freudian theory tried to explain in their own way about the process of socialization. But it was in the late sixties, Baumrind work on children which resulted into a paradigm shift in looking after the socialization process of children. She gave three parenting typologies: authoritative, authoritarian and permissive. These three parenting styles differ in behaviours, values, and standards which parents expect their children to adopt. The three parenting styles have different consequences on children cognitive and social competence development.Baumrind suggested that authoritative parents are warm and responsive, providing their children with affection and support in their explorations and pursuit of interests. These parents have high maturity demands (e.g. expectations for achievement) for their children but foster these maturity demands through bidirectional communication, induction (i.e. explanations of their behaviour) and encouragement of independence. Baumrind further suggested that authoritarian parents are neither warm nor responsive to their children. They have high maturity demands for their children primarily because they are intolerant of selfishness or inappropriate behaviour. These parents are strict, expect obedience, and assert power when their children misbehave. When socializing their children, authoritarian parents express their maturity demands and expectations through rules and orders, and do not communicate to their children the rationale behind these rules. In case of permissive parents are moderate in their responsiveness (i.e. some parents are high and some are low) toward their children's needs. These parents, however, are excessively lax in their expectations for their children's level of maturity and their tolerance of misbehaviour. When socializing their children, permissive parents are usually dismissive and unconcerned. These parents score moderately high on measures of responsiveness and low on measures of maturity demands and control. Researches in western and European countries have further confirmed that authoritative parenting is optimum for children socialization and development. But, the researches cross culturally though agree with the parenting typology but they found rather than authoritative parenting it is authoritarian or permissive parenting is related to the positive developmental outcomes in other culture especially in South East Asian and Middle east countries. This is because parenting varies with values, belief, socialization goals of a particular culture. In South Asian countries like Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and even in India where it is predominantly collectivistic culture prevails in homes and literature provides the evidence of it, what could be the parenting style adopted by Indian families, it could not be say with authority. Moreover, present India is passing through transition phase where influence of modernization, high rate of urbanization, higher level of educational level among people and influence of technology has permeated in the life of the urban Indian families. Therefore, in this context it is indeed necessary to identify parenting style among the parents. Moreover, the parenting is associated with various developmental outcomes of children therefore, it is necessary that emotional intelligence a key predictor of handling emotional situations of life in an intelligent manner, value orientation the attunement of children towards positive or negative values and social adjustment the ability of the child to have a harmonious adjustment with his/her social surroundings, were the three important variables studied in relationship with the parenting style. Since the adolescent is the phase which is crucial especially related to various developmental aspects and more so in context to contemporary society where adolescence age children were surrounded by complex environment and influenced by so many factors, therefore, it was necessary to conduct research on: Study Parenting Style in Relation to Emotional Intelligence, Value Orientation and Social Adjustment among Secondary Students The main objective of the study was to identify parenting style of both the parents. Further objective was to find out the relationship between parenting style and emotional intelligence, value orientation and social adjustment. The study was carried out on a sample of 246 students of tenth standard and their parents selected through random sampling technique. The tools used were Parenting Style Dimension Questionnaire (PSDQ) developed by Robinson et al. to identify parenting style of parents. The Emotional Intelligence Test (EIT) was used to find out the level of emotional intelligence among students, Value Orientation Scale (VOS) to determine the value orientation among students and Social Adjustment Scale (SAS) developed and standardized by the researcher. The findings of the research study were as follows: 1. Majority of parents had authoritative parenting. 2. Another finding was that majority of students have average emotional intelligence and social adjustment. In case of value orientation, both girls and boys had an inclination towards higher end of values i.e.cosmopolitanism, scienticism, venturesome, democratism, progressivism and empathy. 3. It was found out that girls had higher emotional intelligence than boys and the difference between both the groups were found out to be significant. 4. It was found out that there is no significant difference between girls and boys on value orientation except in one of its dimension scienticism. 5. There is no significant correlation between parenting style of father and mother with emotional intelligence and value orientation of their children. 6. Authoritative parenting style component of father and mother is significantly negatively correlated with social adjustment whereas authoritarian parenting style component of father and mother is significantly positively correlated with social adjustment.