Influence of Birth Order and Type of Parenting Style on Delinquent Behaviour among Senior Secondary School Students in Northern Nigeria

The paper focuses on the Influence of Birth Order and Type of Parenting Style on Delinquent Behaviour of Senior Secondary School Students in Northern Nigeria. The design of the study was correlational and three null hypotheses were raised and tested to guide the study. Population of the study consists of one thousand three hundred and five secondary school students who were identified with the problem of delinquent behavior in Northern Nigeria. Three hundred and sixty of the delinquent students were sampled for the study using multi-stage sampling technique. Juvenile Delinquent Behaviour Questionnaire (JDBQ) and Parenting Style questionnaire (PSQ) were used to collect the data. Percentage on frequency count, Regression analysis and Pearson Product Moment Correlation were used to analyse the data. The result shows that birth order predicts 32% of delinquent behavior. It was also revealed a significant correlation between permissive parenting style and delinquent behaviour with (r=0.606 and p=0.038) and between authoritative parenting style and delinquent behaviour with (r= - 0.836 and p=0.000). Among others, it was concluded that birth order significantly influence delinquent behavior of secondary school students and that permissive parenting style has positive influence on delinquent behavior. Thus, it was recommended among others that school counsellors, psychologists and parents should acknowledge the roles of birth order and parenting styles in preventing delinquent behavior.