Perception of Authoritative Mothers About Their Single Children’s Social Adjustment in The Environment

Abstract

The current study focuses on the perception of mothers who have adopted authoritative parenting styles about their single children’s social adjustment in their environments. The author tried to examine how in the Indian context, the authoritative parenting style affects the social adjustment in children, especially in single children. In this paper, the researcher tried to bring an original contribution by identifying what is missing in the literature. A lot of researches have been done on describing or examining the relationship between the perceived parenting styles and social adjustment among children adopting a quantitative research design but very little researches have been done with the same variables in the Indian context, especially taking single children into consideration as well as by adopting a qualitative research design. By adopting a qualitative research design, the researcher tried to understand the phenomenon by taking semi-structured interviews from five mothers who adopted authoritative parenting style. The research findings revealed that the mothers who allow their children some freedom and allow them to explore the social environment along with some rules and regulations tend to have limited but better social relationships as well as share a better relationship with both the parents. The single child shares a special bond with his/her mother where the mother lives up too many roles including that of a friend. The research finding was accompanied by certain recommendations.