The Relationship Between Empowering Parenting and Health-Oriented Academic Lifestyle: The Mediating Role of Academic Parenting Behaviors

Abstract

Purpose: The objective of this study was to test a hypothesized mediation model in which academic parenting mediates the relationship between empowering parenting and health-oriented academic lifestyle behaviors.Methods and Materials: In this correlational study, 500 adolescents (250 girls and 250 boys) aged 16 to 18 years, selected through convenience sampling, completed the Empowering Parenting Scale, the Health-Oriented Academic Lifestyle Behavior Questionnaire, and the Academic Parenting Scale. To test the hypothesized causal model involving partial mediation, path analysis using a model-fitting approach was employed.Findings: The results of the statistical analysis indicated that the hypothesized model demonstrated a good fit with the data. All path coefficients between the observed variables were statistically significant, except for the direct path coefficient from parental warmth and parental support variables to the inhibitory behaviors of health-oriented academic lifestyle, and the direct path coefficient from psychological control to the facilitative behaviors of such lifestyle. Empowering parenting and academic parenting together explained 53% and 34% of the variance in facilitative and inhibitory academic lifestyle behaviors, respectively.Conclusion: The findings, emphasizing the mediating role of academic parenting in the relationship between empowering parenting and health-oriented academic lifestyle behaviors, suggest that one of the conceptual paths to understanding adolescents’ productive/unproductive achievement-oriented behaviors in achievement contexts can be realized through empowering parenting as a non-contextual approach in the domain of parenting, when integrated with academic parenting as a contextual approach for analyzing parenting styles.