The Relationship Between Parenting Style and the Emotional Dynamics of Parents, and the Social Interactions of Mentally Retarded Children in Bahagia Foundation Special School in Tasikmalaya

Mentally retarded children have below average intelligence. Limited ability makes it difficult to adapt, leading many parents to feel concerned that their children might be unable to interact socially. This study considers the 14 SDLB students at the Bahagia Tasikmalaya Foundation SLB, and aims to determine the relationship between parenting styles and the emotional dynamics of parents on the one hand, with the social interactions of mentally retarded children on the other hand. This research used a quantitative type method with a cross sectional approach, applied to 126 mentally retarded students. The sample used was random sampling with the Slovin formula so that 96 samples were collected with a significance level of 0.05. The results of this study showed that out of 96 respondents applying democratic parenting 76 people (79.2%), 13 authoritarian patterns (13.5%), and 7 premissive (7.2%). The emotional dynamics of people in positive categories were 89 people or (92.7%) and negative categories were 7 people (7.3%). The social interaction of mentally retarded children in the moderate category was 49 children (51.0%), the Good category was 33 children (34.4%), the Less category was 14 children (14.6%). The conclusion in this study is that there is a significant relationship between parenting styles with mentally retarded children who get a p-value of 0.001 <0.005 and there is a significant relationship between the emotional dynamics of parents and social interactions of mentally retarded children who get p-value 0.021 <0.005. Parents need to apply democratic parenting, be able to maintain emotions by generating positive emotional reactions so as to form good social interactions for mentally retarded children.   Keywords: parenting patterns, emotional dynamics and social interaction