Parenting Styles and Its Effect on Self-Esteem of Adolescents

This study primarily aims at assessing and studying the parenting styles and its effect on the selfesteem of adolescents, specifically in Indian context. ‘Parenting styles’ are of four main types which are authoritarian, authoritative, permissive and neglectful parenting style. Three main styles out of these namely authoritarian, authoritative and permissive style of parenting have been kept as the focus of this study to assess their effect on the self-esteem of adolescents since both theoretically and practically it has always been documented and proved that the neglectful approach of parents always negatively impact the children and adolescents’ factors related to their ‘self’, therefore it is not kept in the inclusion criteria for this study. The selected sample for this study consisted of a total of 120 participants (60 female and 60 male) adolescents selected from Delhi and NCR in India, the age range kept as 16-18years (with no mental and physical disability, regular school going adolescents, with nearly same socio-economic background and only those from unbroken nuclear families with mothers who were homemakers). The findings showed that there is no significant difference between permissive and authoritative parenting both in case of mothers’ and fathers’ parenting on the self-esteem of adolescents and both these styles of parenting mostly results in higher self-esteem among adolescents as compared to authoritarian style of parenting which is found to have a significant negative correlation with the self-esteem of adolescents. Also, not much difference is found between the self-esteem levels of male and female adolescents in present times in urban Indian context.

Parenting continues to exist as the most demanding and taxing yet satisfying, pleasing and valuable experience which proves to be rewarding in its own perplexing ways. 'Parenting style' is a term that emphasizes on the parental actions and reactions towards their child which involves beliefs they carry, expectations they have and show values and beliefs on how actually parents help, support, take care of the child and how they punish the child. There are four main styles of parenting given by child development professionals globally: Authoritative, authoritarian, permissive and neglectful parenting. Self-Esteem is one's sense of self and self-evaluation. Baumrind has documented specific association and relationship that exists between styles of parenting and self-esteem. (Williams, Family educator and counselor) in her article mentions that for a healthy family life it is very much important for the parents to develop and practice consistent intra as well as inter-parenting. In India, Fathers' generally are more physically distant as compared to mothers and father-child relationship generally is marked by obedience and compliance while most of the time of mothers is spent taking care of their children (Ranganath and Ranganath,1997). Overall, Much of research work is required in the area of parenting in South Asian families especially in India since researches based on predominant parenting styles practiced and their effect of self-esteem of children and adolescents in India are scarce. Deshpande and Chhabriya (2013) did a research on parenting styles and its effect on adolescents' self-esteem for which they focused on adolescent teenagers and conveyed through their research that due to generation gap between parents and their adolescents and inability of parents to understand their adolescents, conflicts arise. Their findings included that adolescents who perceive acceptance attitude in their parents have a higher self-esteem than the adolescents who perceive avoidance and concentration attitude in their parents, parental acceptance or support is positively related to adolescents' self-esteem. And that mild punishment from parents can result in high self-esteem in adolescents' as they view their parents as their care taker and sometimes protector. Driscoll (2013) , studied the link between self-esteem and parenting styles at four stages of life with four different age points .The results showed that self-esteem was lowest during 14 years of age for the children in general, reason being it's the stage when they experience tough times in the sense that there are various changes that they have to deal with ranging from their body to the relationships they have with their friends and family and most common type of parenting changes to permissive parenting during 18-23 years of age, in general. Children from authoritative families had higher self-esteem at all four age points as compared to children from authoritarian families. Even permissive parenting was found to result in higher self-esteem levels in comparison to authoritarian parenting.

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
MacDonald, Steger and Adams from University of British Columbia did a study on Child rearing-behaviors and Adolescent Self-esteem -An examination of reciprocal effects. In this study the influence of perceived parental support and control on adolescents' self-esteem was examined. Their result showed a reciprocal relationship between perceived parental behavior and adolescent's self-esteem, a positive association between parental support and adolescent selfesteem and a negative association between parental control and their adolescent self-esteem was found.
Fletcher, Steinberg and Sellers (1999), studied how the well-being of adolescents is connected to the Inter-parental Consistency perceived by the adolescents. The comparison was made between adolescents from families where inter-parental consistency was existent with adolescents who were from homes where inter-parental consistency was absent. It was found that adolescents who had parents who exercise consistent inter-parenting but authoritarian or non-authoritative parenting were lower in their academic achievements as compared to those who had single authoritative parent. Also, adolescents having one authoritative and one authoritarian parent were having higher internalized distress in comparison to those who had consistent parental practices.

Purpose and Objectives of the Study:
The present study aimed at studying the parenting styles and its effect on self-esteem of adolescents, to assess the effect of inter-parental consistency on the self-esteem of adolescents and to assess the effect of parenting style on self-esteem influenced by the gender of the adolescents. It was hypothesized that: there would be no significant difference between authoritative and permissive parenting style both associated with high self-esteem among adolescents, Authoritarian parenting style would be associated with low self-esteem among adolescents, there would be a significant difference between inter-parental consistency and interparental inconsistency on the self-esteem of adolescents and that there would be a significant difference in the self-esteem between male and female adolescents.

Sample :
The selected sample consists of the total of 120 participants (60 males 60 females) selected from Delhi and NCR (Noida and Gurgaon) in India in the ages between 16-18 years with no mental and physical disability, regular school going adolescents, with nearly same socioeconomic background and only those from unbroken nuclear families with mothers who were homemakers.

Tools:
1. Coopersmith Inventory Adult Form-developed by Coopersmith in the year 1987. It has 25 items to be answered by the respondents. 2. Parental Authority Questionnaire (both forms) -developed by Dr. John R. Buri in the year 1991. It has 30 items per form.

Statistical Analysis :
Separate total scoring done for the two tests based on scoring method to be applied for both the tests individually.
-Finding Mean Scores, Standard Deviation, t-test , Correlation Coefficient and Graphical representations of the results found. Table 1.  Table 1.1 (a) clearly indicates that there exists no big difference between the self-esteem of adolescents who experience permissive parenting and those who experience authoritative parenting by their mothers. The results clearly indicates that although, the range in which the average scores fall shows that on an average permissive parenting by fathers results in slightly higher selfesteem levels than authoritative parenting by fathers on the self-esteem of adolescents but there exists no major difference between the self-esteem of adolescents who experience permissive parenting and those who experience authoritative parenting also, even in the case of fathers.

(a) and (b) clearly indicates a significant correlation between mothers'
authoritarian parenting and the self-esteem of their adolescents and also between fathers' authoritarian parenting and sense of worth of their adolescents and the 'negative sign' of correlation coefficient is indicative of the existent negative correlation between the two factors.  Table 2: There is no significant difference between consistent and inconsistent inter-parenting. Inter-parental consistency and inter-parental inconsistency on an average have resulted in the average levels of self-esteem.  The results indicate that though the self-esteem levels of male adolescents on an average in this study is slightly higher than the female adolescents but the difference between the two is not much significant since the t-obt is smaller than the t-critical and on an average both males and females have average levels of self-esteem.

Table 3:Comparison Of Mean, SD And Values Of t-obtained And t-critical Of Self-Esteem Between Male And Female Adolescents
The graphical representations of the self-esteem of adolescents and parenting styles of their mothers and fathers based on the results found: authoritative style of parenting. Also, that most of the adolescents with permissive and/or authoritative mothers and fathers had higher self-esteem levels. Had there been fewer gaps between the number of adolescents with permissive fathers and those with authoritative fathers, there is a high possibility that even this slight difference might not have occurred. Thus, it is evident from the result table 1.1 (a) and 1.1 (b) that hypothesis 1 part (a) is accepted. These findings are also seen to be in coordination with another research that had proved that the adolescents experiencing authoritative as well as permissive or indulgent parenting tends to gain higher levels of confidence in oneself (Lamborn, Mounts, Steinberg and Dornbusch ,1991), a variable though different from Self-esteem but is very much related to it since sense of worth would highly affect confidence in one's self and vice-versa. Also, the second part of the hypothesis 1(b) stating that 'authoritarian parenting is associated with low levels of self-esteem among adolescents' of this study was proved wholly i.e., in terms of both the mothers and the fathers authoritarian style of parenting. The present study's finding relates to a study already done which emphasized that authoritative and permissive parenting yields positive effects on the self-esteem of children and adolescents whereas authoritarian style of parenting is yields negative results on self-esteem of children and adolescents (Chiew, 2011). Also, results indicate that majority of parents provides inter-consistent parenting to their children in today's times in Indian urban context. But there exists no difference as such in the self-esteem levels of adolescents with inter-parental inconsistency and those with inter-parental consistency which could be because of many others factors also working upon the sense of self-worth of these adolescent. Another objective of this study was to assess the effect of parenting style on selfesteem influenced by the gender of the adolescents, the results obtained for which shows that there doesn't exist any significant difference between the sense of self-worth among male adolescents and female adolescents A major reason for which is that majority of the adolescents (both males and females) received authoritative parenting from at-least one of the parent. In the present time in Indian urban context there are maximum instances of parents adopting and providing authoritative parenting without consciously discriminating upon their parental approach based on the traditional beliefs of North Indian patriarchal culture linked to 'gender' of their child, which tends to lower the instances of difference between self-esteem levels of male adolescents and female adolescents in a general scenario. The present findings are in contrast to some researches done in the earlier times in Asian and Indian context in particular. For instance, one of these studies mentioned that there is often a discouragement of autonomy by parents in South Asians including India unlike in East Asian countries (Chao & Tseng, 2002). Overall, this the results for this study done suggests that there in today's times most parents (mothers as well as fathers) are providing their adolescents with authoritative parenting styles in urban societies of North India. Which is a relatively new and clear finding in constrast to the old research findings on parenting styles in Asian and Indian contexts giving more evidences for authoritarian parenting being majorly adopted in these contexts.

CONCLUSION
The present study was done with the aim of studying the parenting styles and its effect on the self-esteem of adolescents, specifically of in Indian urban context. The main objective of doing this study is in the fact that though there exists a good amount of work done in this area but majority of the work is undertaken for adolescents in western cultures. The study suggests that there does not exist any significant difference between the permissive parenting style and authoritative parenting style of both fathers and mothers in terms of their effect upon the selfesteem of adolescents, and that in most cases these two styles of parenting results in higher levels of self-esteem as compared to authoritarian style of fathers' as well as mothers' parenting. Infect a significant negative correlation exists between fathers' and mothers' authoritarian parental approach and the self-esteem of their adolescents. Also, it was observed from the results that there is no significant difference between the effect of inter-parental consistency and inter-parental inconsistency on the sense of self-worth among the adolescents and no specific effect on selfesteem led by the gender of the adolescents. Overall, with the help of this study it can be suggested that keeping in mind the consistency as well as discrepancies of the results of this study with the findings for the effect of inter-parental consistency and inter-parental inconsistency on adolescents in some of the different researches already done in this area, what seems as the only option is a 'mid-way' which reminds of a 'good cop and bad cop formula', that may prove to be more efficient from time to time in parenting.