Relationship between Parenting Styles and Academic Adjustments among Selected Kenyan Secondary School Students

The present study examined the relationship between parenting styles and the academic adjustments among form one secondary school students in Nyaribari Chache Sub-County, Kisii County, Kenya. The study employed Expo-facto research design. The total numbers of secondary schools in the Sub-County were 30 while the entire population of grade nine secondary school students was 5480. The study used a sample of 548. A stratified random sampling technique was used to select 15 secondary schools from the 30 schools in the sub-county. Stratified random sampling was also used to select respondents to reflect gender in each sampled school. Questionnaires were used to collect data from the form 1 students. The split-half method was used to determine reliability of questionnaires and a value of r=0.832 was reported. Descriptive statistics such as frequencies, percentages and means, the inferential statistics such as Regression analysis was used to analyze data. The study findings were that parenting variables statistically significantly predicted academic adjustment, F (4, 95) = 32.347, p< .05, R2 = .661. The more parents were authoritative, the more likely the students were adjusting positively to new academic environment for good academic performance as shown by a positive (β=0.665). Teacher counselors should seek ways to strengthen their relationship with the parents in order to gain a better understanding of their parenting styles and then handle each child according to the parenting style applied. Key words: Relationship, parenting styles, academic adjustments, form one, Kenyan secondary school student