Relationship between Parenting Styles and Spiritual Wellbeing among Catholic Emerging Adults in Western Deanery, Archdioceses of Nairobi, Kenya.

Abstract

Parenting style greatly influences many areas of emerging adults' lives, especially their spiritual well-being. This quantitative study investigated the relationship between parenting styles and spiritual well-being among Catholic emerging adults of the Western Deanery Archdiocese of Nairobi, Kenya. A proportional stratified sampling technique was used to obtain a sample size of 290 emerging adults aged 18 to 29 years. The study had three objectives: to find out the parenting styles, to establish the levels of spiritual well-being, and to examine the relationship between parenting styles and spiritual well-being. Family System Theory informed this research. The Parental Authority Questionnaire (PAQ) and Spiritual Well-Being Scale (SWBS) were used for the data collection. The descriptive statistics considered were frequencies, ranges, percentiles, means, and standard deviations. Pearson’s correlation was used for inferential statistics performed using SPSS version 25. The results of descriptive statistics identified three parenting styles: authoritarian (M =35.48, 70.96 %), authoritative was (M = 34.49, 68.98%), and permissiveness polled at (M =25.75, 51.50%). Descriptive analysis revealed that the levels of spiritual well-being were 1.1%, 98.5 %, and 0.4% at low, moderate, and high levels, respectively. The results obtained from the inferential statistics analysis, specifically the Pearson correlation between parenting styles and spiritual well-being, indicated a weak negative relationship (r = -0.014, p = 0.813). This study recommends that emerging adults prioritize spiritual well-being and remain proactive in spiritual growth activities in the church, which promotes their spiritual well-being.