Comparison of Parental Styles and Parental Self-efficacy among Mothers with One Child vs. Those with More than One Child of 6-12 Year-Old Age Groups in Bandar Abbas

The number of children may have an impact on the family and parents. Therefore, this study was conducted by the aim of comparing parental styles and parental self-efficacy among mothers with one child vs. those with more than one child of 6-12 year-old age groups in Bandar Abbas. The research method was descriptive and from causal-comparative. The statistical population included all mothers with all mothers with 6-12 year-old children of Bandar Abbas in 2016 that were assigned into two groups as mothers with one child vs. those with more than one child and 90 people (45 in each group) were selected using random cluster sampling method. Parental Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (PSEQ) and Alabama Parenting Questionnaire (APQ) were used for gathering data. Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) and SPSS software were used for analyzing the data. The results showed there was not significant difference between parenting styles of mothers with one child vs. those with more than one child (p> 0/05), but there was significant difference between parental self-efficacy of mothers with one child vs. those with more than one child (F= 21.29, p < 0.05), and mothers with more than one child have higher self-efficacy. According to the findings, it seems that increasing the number of children can give parents a sense of competence in parenting process, but the number of children does not affect parental styles.