| dc.description.abstract | Parenting a teenager is exciting, rewarding and challenging (Dinkemeyer, Mackay, Mackay & Dinkmayer Jr, 1998). Challenges related to raising a teenager suggest that responsibilities of parents are probably too many to count. Among them one can include having to think about developmental milestones as well as contemplating appropriate and acceptable ways of assisting children to reach these milestones at a normative pace (Rubin & Chung, 2006). Lesch and Jager (2013) add that both parents and peer relationships are vital social resources for adolescents, and that relationships between adolescents and their parents are important for global self-worth and well-being. According to Mohammadi, Samavi and Azadi (2013), parenting styles are effective factors which contribute to good and bad development of children and adolescents.
Researchers have found that there are four parenting styles that may be classified as authoritarian, authoritative, permissive and uninvolved (Jago, Davison, Brockman & Page, 2011). In addition to the four broad styles of parenting, Barnhart, Raval and Jansavari (2013) add that parents from varying cultures socialise boys and girls differently. Through socialisation children do not only learn values and norms of the society, they also learn how to cope with life challenges and situations. According to Mohammadi, Samavi and Azadi (2013), coping positively in life can be considered as a result of resilience.
Ballenge-Borwoning and Johnson (2010) explain that the resiliency process describes ways in which an individual adapts to traumatic life events. Common elements in resilience include the acceptance of the presence of risks or adversity as well as protective factors that allow a person to cope successfully and adapt while overcoming risk and attaining positive results (Kabiru, Beguy, Ndugwa, Zulu & Jessor, 2012). Research focusing on resilience has produced literature that evaluated how parents promoted resilience in their children. The major finding of researchers was that parenting styles have an influence, positive or negative, on their children’s resilience (Hoffman, 2010). Resilience is associated with basic protective systems, which include problem solving, mastery, reasoning, meaning making and self-regulation (Theron, 2012). In the same vein, parenting styles and resilience are closely associated with emotional intelligence.
Schutte, Mallouff, Siminek, Mckenley and Hollander (2002) define emotional intelligence as the degree to which a person can identify and understand emotions in themselves and other people. Similarly, Sung (2010) is of the opinion that other people view it as skills which they employ to succeed as it helps the development of both personal growth and interpersonal relationships. Salami (2011) adds that a student with a high level of emotional intelligence will have self-acceptance, relate well with others, have autonomy and master their environment. Studies on human development have recorded that the developmental period of adolescents is characterised by negative emotions, self-perceptions and heightened emotionality among adolescents. Therefore emotional intelligence serves as a protective factor for adolescents going through difficult challenges in their lives. It is in this context that the relationship between parenting styles, resilience and emotional intelligence among adolescents is investigated. | en_US |
