Parents’ Emotional and Physical Availability as Factors in Morality and Physical Stress of Adolescents with Working Parents.

Abstract

The economic realities in most families have made it challenging for parents to be sufficiently
available to provide growing children with needed guidance and care for proper development. One
negative impact of such unavailability may be the recent surge in moral decay and the level of stress
among adolescents. This study investigated the roles of emotional and physical availability on
morality and physical stress ofadolescents with working parents. A cross-sectional design was
adopted in the study and a convenient sampling technique was used to select 300 adolescent
secondary school students aged 13-19 years, who completed the Lum Emotional Availability of
Parents Scale, Moral Identity Questionnaire, Perceived Stress Scale and Parent Physical Availability
Scale and provided relevant demographic information. Hierarchical multiple regression results
showed that emotional availability was positively associated with morality, indicating that parents'
emotional availability was associated with increased morality;but physical availability was not
significantly associated with morality. Emotional availability was not significantly associated with
physical stress; however, physical availability was positively associated with physical stress, such
that adolescents whose parents were always available reported higher physical stress. The findings
could guide stakeholders in planning relevant interventions to assist parents to balance