Influence of Parenting Practices on Adolescent Risky Behaviours of Secondary School Students in Oyigbo Local Government Area, Rivers State

Abstract

The study investigated the influence of parenting practices on adolescent risky behaviours of secondary school students in Oyigbo Local Government Area, Rivers State. The study was guided by two research questions and one null hypothesis tested at 0.05 level of significance. Descriptive survey design was adopted. The target population consists of 5 947 senior secondary school students of the 8 public secondary schools in Oyigbo Local Government Area. A sample size of 680 students selected by random sampling from 4 out of the 8 public secondary schools in the area was used for the study. The instruments for the study were two structured questionnaires namely: Modified Parenting Practices Questionnaire and Adolescents Risky Behaviour Questionnaire. Both instruments have a reliability of 0.72 and 0.67 respectively. Arithmetic mean was used to answer the research questions while Pearson Product Moment Correlation was used for testing the hypothesis. The findings from the study revealed that parenting practices have strong influence and relationship with adolescent risky behaviour. Also, that authoritative and authoritarian parenting practices were more commonly used by parents than other parenting practices. Based on the findings, it was recommended amongst others that parents who are more of authoritarian should relax some of their rules, restrictions and criticisms and build a friendly atmosphere between them and their children to avoid risky behaviours.