The relationship between parenting styles and young adults’ coping strategies

Abstract EN

Objectives: the present study aimed to understand the correlation between parenting styles and the coping mechanisms of their children.

further aims were: (1) to determine which were the more common and (2) knowing the difference between the parenting styles perceived to be used by the study sample in comparison with what have been found in the literature in the globe.

method : a convenience sample of campus-based students attending koya university in Kurdistan resulted in recruitment of n=411 (n=191 men; n=220 women).

parenting styles were assessed using the parental authority questionnaire.

the coping mechanism scale (unpublished) assessed different approaches to coping.

data were analysed using frequency percentage, t-test and pearson correlation techniques in statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 18.0.

results : results showed a significant correlation between parenting styles and coping mechanisms; passivity coping mechanism was found to be positively correlated with the style of authoritative and permissive mothers and positively correlated with the authoritative parenting styles in fathers.

in terms of coping, significant differences between boys and girls in terms of spiritual connection and passivity with boys reporting higher scores on both.

there were no significant gender differences in terms of parenting styles.

an authoritarian parenting style was endorsed as the most common form of parenting in mothers and fathers.

the most common coping mechanism among students was passivity.

conclusion : passive coping mechanisms were the more commonly used approaches reported by student participants, and the most common parenting style appraised by the study sample was authoritarian parenting style.