Assessing Parenting Styles, Impact of Poor Parenting and Challenges in Parenting in the Rural Wututu Community, Southwest Region, Cameroon.

Abstract

Parenting style can positively and negatively affect the development of children. The three major theories in parenting styles include; authoritarian parenting, permissive parenting and authoritative parenting. In the Southwest region, most especially in the Wututu community, information on parenting styles and its impact on children’s developments is limited. Thus, this study therefore sought to identify the different parenting styles, the impact of these various parenting styles on the development of children and identify challenges to successful parenting in Wotutu community. A cross-sectional community-based study was carried out in the Wututu community from the 3rd of January to the 20th of February 2025. It involved 115 parents (male and female) who had children between the ages of 0-15 years under their care. The most prominent parenting style was authoritarian parenting (33.9%), followed by free range parenting (23.5%) while the least practiced was attachment parenting (7.8%). The impact of poor parenting included; aggressive children (20%), avoiding peers (16.5%), development of frequent weight loss (11.3%), constantly sick (10.4%) and malnourished (5.2%). The major challenges parents faced in successful parenting were; lack of finance (47.0%), children don’t like to study (24.3%), children are addicted to gadgets (24.3%) and the lack of enough time to care for the children (23.5%). Overall, the results suggest a dominance of traditional and structured parenting approaches in Wututu. Further qualitative studies may help explore the underlying beliefs and socio-cultural factors influencing these parenting choices.