The Role of Fathers in Developing Adolescents Personality and its Implication Towards Family Value

Abstract

The paper discusses a survey study that examined the involvement of fathers in parenting and its relationship with their children’s development. A total of 468 adolescents who participated in the study had responded to questionnaires on aspects of fathers’ parenting. Analysis of correlation coefficient between fathers’ involvement in parenting and academic achievement and self concept of the adolescents were performed. Frequency count, percentage and mean were also calculated to examine the parenting involvement among fathers. Results indicated that fathers were perceived by their children as responsible and supportive of their mothers. However, the respondents felt that their fathers were unfriendly and had little communication with them. They also expressed that their fathers did not help them in their school works. The correlation between fathers’ involvement in parenting and their children academic performance and with the their self concept was rather low. This implies that the role of father in parenting need to be examined further. However, as the majority (75 percent) of the respondents were Malay and they came from low SES (< RM 1000) therefore the results are only reflect the Malay low income group. Studies with more representative sample are therefore recommended to verify the support the present findings.