Influence of Parenting Styles on Substance use among youths from treatment centers in Kiambu County, Kenya

Abstract

Parenting styles act as a compass in guiding children as they develop into adults, and each style has an important implication for children’s future functional development. This means that parenting plays a principal role in child socialization, providing an early understanding of identity. The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of parenting styles on substance use among youths from treatment centers in Kiambu County. The study specifically sought to establish the influence of authoritative parenting style, authoritarian parenting style, permissive parenting style and uninvolved parenting style on substance use among youths from treatment centers in Kiambu County. The study was guided by Baumrind’s theory of parenting styles. The study adopted a descriptive research design with a target population of 30 recovering addicts and 6 counselors aged 18-35 years from Wonderpeace, Ahadi and Sober Living treatment centers. The study used purposive sampling to select 30% of the study population. The study employed a modified Parenting Style Four-Factor Questionnaire and interview schedule to measure parenting styles as perceived by the youths. The Drug Abuse Screening Test was used to assess substance use levels among the youth. Pilot testing involved participants from the Retreat treatment center in Limuru SubCounty, Kiambu County. A coefficient of more than 0.7 was obtained, and hence qualifying the instrument in the study as reliable. The validity of instruments was approved by the university supervisors and pilot testing. Thematic analysis assisted in identifying patterns of meaning across a dataset that provided an answer to the research question sort for. The Statistical Package for Social Science version 24.0 was used in analyzing the collected data. Descriptive statistics involved frequencies, means, standard deviations and percentages. Data from the semi-structured interview guides were coded and analyzed using. Thematic analysis and presented in verbatim. Pearson correlation was used to test relationships between independent and dependent variables. Findings of the study indicated that there was no significant relationship between authoritative parenting style and the youths’ substance use (r=0.232, p=0.421). There was a significant relationship between authoritarian parenting and youths’ substance use (r= 0.37, p= 0.04). There was also a strong positive relationship between both permissive and uninvolved parenting styles and the youths’ substance use (r=0.710 at p<0.05) ((r=0.785 at p<0.05) consecutively. Therefore, it was established from the findings that authoritarian, permissive and uninvolved parenting styles had influenced on substance use among youths from treatment centers in Kiambu County. The study recommended that parents should not impose forceful and punitive discipline to disobedience in children, but rather make engagements and negotiation to find an amicable solution. Parents should keep track of their children’s social interaction and behavior to ensure they are consistent with the moral virtues and principles accepted in society. Further research should be carried again in the rest of other Counties for comparative purposes. The findings of the study may enable the government of Kenya to initiate evidence-based interventions for addressing the fundamental issues that contribute to substance use among the youth in the Counties. The findings of the study may also add to the limited existing information on the influence of parenting styles on substance use among the youths