Parents as Teachers: The Influence of Internal and External Factors on Parenting Style Differences

Research on the relationship between parents and children consistently shows that parents play a major role in developing the child's personality and skills. The influence of parents on children, among others, took place through parenting style. In the Indonesian context, teachers had also been viewed as an authority whose role was similar to parents in educating children, considering students spent a remarkable amount of time learning together with teachers at school. Based on this reason, this study explored whether the parenting styles adopted by teachers as parents at their homes were related to the parenting styles they applied to students at school. We also examined the extent to which gender and education levels influenced parenting. Using accidental sampling, this study was conducted on 501 teachers from five cities in Indonesia using the Parenting Style Scale. The analysis showed that there was a positive relationship between the teacher's parenting styles at home and school. Furthermore, gender was a significant factor in distinguishing one dimension of parenting style, in contrast to the level of education. Further analysis found that domicile influenced parenting behavior, which indicated the role of culture in parenting practices.