Parental Roles in Conflict Prevention and Resolution among Siblings in Families in Adamawa State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study was conducted in Adamawa State Nigeria. Three research questions and three null hypotheses were developed to guide the study. A descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. The population for the study was the 992,328 couples from 
Adamawa State. Multi-stage involving purposive-random sampling techniques were employed in selecting 144 couples that constituted the sample frame for the study. The instrument for data collection for the study was a structured 37-item questionnaire titled: “Parental Roles in Conflict Prevention and Resolution among Siblings Questionnaire (PRCPRASQ). The questionnaire was structured into a 4-point rating scale of Strongly Agreed (SA), Agreed (A), Disagreed (D), and Strongly Disagreed (SD) with corresponding values of 4, 3, 2, and 1 respectively. The instrument was validated by three experts while the Cronbach Alpha reliability method was used in which a Cronbach alpha coefficient of 0.83 was obtained for the instrument. The data collected were analysed using mean for answering the research questions while t-test statistics were used for testing the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. From the data analysed, the study found that giving a preferential treatment by parents in favour of some children in the family and the inability of parents to instill discipline and a sense of respect among children are chief causes of conflict among siblings. In addition, parental roles in conflict prevention and resolution among siblings include giving equal treatment to children, instilling in children a proper sense of discipline and respect, balancing love and affection among the children to avoid preference. Based on these findings, the study among others recommended that parents should discourage wrong behaviours and activities that can trigger conflict among their children and that parents should inculcate acceptable behaviours in the children such as love, peace, tolerance, honesty, integrity, and good morals.