Parental Self-Efficacy Predicted by Parents’ Subjective Well-Being and Their Parenting Styles with Possible Role of Help-Seeking Orientation from Teachers

The current study aims to test the ideas that parental self-efficacy is associated with parenting style, parents’ help-seeking orientation from teachers, and subjective well-being. Based on the literature background presented, two hypotheses were examined: First, autonomy help-seeking orientation, the authoritative parenting style, and high subjective well-being would be positive predictors of parental self-efficacy. Second, dependent help-seeking orientation and non-authoritative parenting styles are negative predictors of parental self-efficacy. One hundred and thirty-two parents of school-age children answered questionnaires measuring the research and background variables. A multivariate regression analysis found that the independent variables explain about 53% of the variance of the parental self-efficacy scores, with subjective well-being and the authoritative parenting style being uniquely associated with high parental self-efficacy, and the permissive parenting style being uniquely associated with low parental self-efficacy. The present study focuses on parental self-efficacy as an important parental component, demonstrating the personal characteristics of parents that may affect their perceived efficacy, and offers an integrative portrait of factors that can describe parents’ attitudes and behavior toward their competence as parents. Implications for intervention are discussed.