Parenting Practices and the Development of Trait Emotional Intelligence: A Study on Romanian Senior High Schoolers
Parenting Practices and the Development of Trait Emotional Intelligence: A Study on Romanian Senior High Schoolers

Summary/Abstract: Nothing of what a parent invests in his/her child/children is ever lost. Such an investment is forever and extremely valuable. In most life cases, it is rewarded and acts like a boomerang. In most life situations, a parent will project in his/her child/children everything that he/she cherishes most through his/her conduct, through what he/she represents and through what he/she says. A child is the purest mirror of a parent. For a child, the most important and significant human interactions involve his/her parents and close family members. A child’s social and educational abilities and skills moulded and developed during his/her childhood and teenage, are the basis for the future adult’s emotional intelligence (EI): the latter will help him/her relate effectively and adapt successfully to his/her professional and family life. A young person with a high EI has better chances to develop proper, significant social relationships with the people around him/her than a young person with a low level of EI has. The present study aims at identifying parenting practices and emotional intelligence and their relationship among senior high school students. One hundred and sixty-one 12 graders from Timisoara, Gataia and Deta (Timiş County, Romania) participated in the study, of which 41.6% males and 58.4% females. Most of them came from rural areas (55.9%). In general, high schoolers displayed moderate to high levels of emotional intelligence (M = 60.84), with the highest scores for the UOE (M = 16.01). This shows that respondents are quite competent in using their own emotions by directing them towards constructive activities and personal performance. There was a significant effect for gender [t(159) = 2.44, p = .015] with boys receiving higher scores (M = 16.64) than girls (M = 15.56). On average, students report more supportive parental practices (M = 40.90) than non-supportive practices (M = 22.97). Regression is the most notable result of the study. What we wanted to see was how, and if parental practices (be they positive or negative) influence the development of EI though, logically; though we expected “supportive” families to have a better effect on EI, we were more interested in seeing what exactly determines EI that needs to be developed in Romanian parenting programmes.

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