Emotional And Behavioral Problems Associated With Parenting Styles In Pakistani Adolescents

Current research was an effort to investigate emotional and behavioral problems in adolescents associated with both mother and father parenting styles. A sample of 300 adolescents from public and private schools of Lahore, (13 to 17 years old, Mean=14.8) were selected to participate in the study. Parenting styles (authoritative, authoritarian, & permissive) were assessed through parental authority questionnaire (PAQ, Buri, 1991) and emotional behavioral problems were screened with the Youth Self-Report (YSR: Achenbach, & Rescorla, 2001). It was hypothesized that i) there will be relationship between parenting styles and emotional, behavioral problems and ii) parenting styles will predict problem behaviors. Findings revealed that authoritative upbringing of both mother and father was established as most optimum style with significant negative relationship with problem behaviors while authoritarian and permissive parenting for mother and father separately as well as together was associated with different problem behaviors. Regression analysis showed that authoritative parenting predicted lower level of problems and authoritarian and permissive styles are significant predictors of emotional and behavioral problems. This research might contribute to create awareness among parents about the effects of their parenting styles on adolescents’ behaviors.