Relationship between Parenting Styles and Marital Adjustment of Married Teachers in Secondary Schools in Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State

Abstract

Marriage is a sacred institution meant to bring happiness to concerned husbands and wives. However, sometimes marriage may turn out to be a source of worries and sorrow. In some cases, method of rearing children may be a contributory factor in dissatisfaction arising from marriage. In this study, therefore, relationship between parenting styles and marital adjustment of married teachers in secondary schools in obio/akpor local government area of Rivers State was addressed. A total of 1107 married teachers in Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State participated in the study. Two research questions and two hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. The instruments for data collection were Marital Adjustment Scale and Parenting Styles Questionnaire which were validated by four experts in Psychology, Measurement and Evaluation. The reliability coefficients of Marital Adjustment Scale and Parenting Styles Questionnaire are 0.83 and 0.80 respectively. The data obtained from these instruments were subjected to multiple regression analysis using SPSS and the results showed that there was a low, positive and significant relationship between authoritative parenting style and marital adjustment. The relationship between authoritarian parenting style and marital adjustment was very low, positive and insignificant. The relationship between permissive parenting style and marital adjustment was also very low, positive and insignificant. There was a low, positive and significant joint relationship between the parenting styles and marital adjustment of married teachers in secondary schools in Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State. Based on the findings, it was recommended that parents in Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State should strive to adopt authoritative parenting style as a method for rearing their children. This recommendation has become imperative because authoritative parenting style has been demonstrated to separately correlate significantly with marital adjustment of married teachers in secondary schools in Rivers State.

Keywords: Authoritarian, Authoritative, Permissive parenting Styles, Democratic Parenting, Marital Adjustment, Relationship, Marriage, Conflict, Demandingness and Responsiveness