Role of Parenting Style of Mothers of Rural India in Self Esteem of Children

Abstract

Self-esteem is the crucial aspect of the adaptive processes in all the stages of life, especially in adolescents. It is connected to the quality of adaptation, well-being, satisfaction of life and health of the adolescents. Self-esteem is also not related to chronological age, but to the adolescents’ quality of social interaction and adaptive capacities to deal with the events of life, including physical and cognitive changes. Thus, the aging does not really result in the decrease of the self-esteem, irrespective of the decline in the areas of mental activity. There are some variations in the of measures of the self-esteem and interpretation of the pertaining results according to various theoretical models. However, the socio-cognitive strategies at play for maintaining a high level of self-esteem should be focused. In such a regulation, importance of others through group belonging, or psychological processes such as social comparison or causal attribution has been shown by Social Psychology. Such a view emphasizes the importance of the social and institutional environment for proper value control and that is why it is in the interest of thinking about building self- esteem while taking on adulthood. This research was conducted, using the perceived questionnaire and scales. Data was collected from 81 children (38 boys and 43 girls) and their mothers from a village and some random people living in urban areas of Haryana. Coopersmith self esteem inventory (school form) was used to measure self esteem of children and Parenting Style Four Factor Questionnaire was used to know the parenting styles of parents. Age range of the sample was 8 to 15 years. The effect of different parenting styles on self esteem of children was examined in this research. By using correlation analysis It was found that most of the parents follow authoritative parenting style. There was a positive correlation between authoritative, permissive parenting styles and self esteem and negative correlation between authoritarian and uninvolved parenting style. No significant correlation was found between permissive parenting styles and self esteem of children.