Parenting Styles and Quality of Life among Students in Public Secondary Schools in Eastern Uganda

Abstract

The study investigated the influence of Parenting styles on the quality of life among students in public secondary schools, Eastern Uganda. The study sought to examine the extent to which Parenting styles influence the students’ quality of life. The study used a correlational research design. A sample size of 368 students were selected from a target population of 9,143 using simple random sampling technique. A questionnaire was used for data collection. It was hypothesized that; There is no statistically significant influence of parenting styles on the quality of life among students in public secondary schools. The findings of the study show that parenting styles alone explains 3.5% of the variations in the outcome variable (students’ quality of life). It was concluded that, there was a high influence of authoritative parenting style, low influence of authoritarian and permissive parenting styles and very low influence of neglectful parenting style on the students’ quality of life in secondary schools in Eastern Uganda. Secondary school students experienced a high level of general life satisfaction quality of life domain and a high level of physical health quality of life domain and experienced lower levels of quality of life in the home environment quality of life domain, and lower levels of quality of life in the psychological well-being quality of life domain. It was recommended that parents adopt the authoritative parenting style as it facilitates good quality of life of students as they pursue their education endeavors and the school administrators to organize an awareness and sensitization workshops on the influence of the home environment on the quality of life of students as well as educating families regarding awareness on the parenting styles and the quality of life of students in secondary school. The school counsellors based on this result are urged to continue providing the psychological support that students would need at any given point in time for them to remain focused on their goals.