An Assessment of the Relationship between Parenting Styles and Attachment Styles among Children in Late Childhood: Case of Consolata Primary School, Nairobi County, Kenya

Abstract

The study assessed the relationship between parenting styles and attachment styles among children in late childhood, focusing on Consolata Primary School, Nairobi County, Kenya. It sought to determine the attachment styles acquired by children in late childhood, examine the parenting styles adopted by parents of children in late childhood, investigate the relationship between social demographic characteristics and parenting styles among parents of children in late childhood, and ascertain the relationship between parenting styles and attachment styles among children in late childhood. The study adopted a descriptive cross-sectional design. The target population was children in their late childhood - aged between 9 years and 12 years and in grade 4 to class 7, at Consolata Primary School. Data was collected using a self-administered questionnaire and analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), version 27.0. Some of the findings were as follows: many (87.6%) of the respondents had acquired a secure attachment with their parents, 11.8% had anxious attachment, and 11.0% had avoidant attachment; and the authoritative parenting style was used by 23.2% of the parents, the permissive style by 2.7%, the authoritarian style by 73.9%, and the dismissive style by 0.6%; For the authoritative parenting style, the predictors were the age of the respondents (p=0.013) and the grade of the student (p=0.003), while for the authoritarian parenting style, the predictors were the age of the parents (p=0.002) and the grade of the student (p=0.000). Moreover, the authoritative parenting style had a strong correlation (r=0.320) with secure attachment, while the dismissive style had the strongest correlation (r=0.131) with anxious attachment, followed by the authoritarian (r=0.069) parenting style. The study recommends that the findings be communicated to parents and policymakers to make them aware of parenting styles' impact on children.