Parental Controlling Affects Negative Emotion and Self-discipline on At-risk Adolescents☆

Abstract Parental controlling is a way to educate adolescents to behave and to generate self-discipline but at the same time this might induce negative emotion in adolescents. This research aims to investigate the effects of parental controlling on negative emotion and self-discipline of at-risk adolescents. Quantitative research was carried out at the area of People Housing Project (PHP), Pantai Dalam, Kuala Lumpur. Eighty four adolescents between the ages of 13 to 18 were recruited. The correlation result of Pearson showed that parental controlling has significant relation with negative emotion and self-discipline of adolescents. Meanwhile, the t-test showed that the level of parental controlling has a significant difference with negative emotion and self- discipline among the adolescents. Meanwhile, MANOVA test result suggests that parental controlling might generate more negative emotion than build up self-discipline in at-risk adolescents. Thus, parental controlling might not seen as caring and family communication seems best in ensuring adolescents to behave and build up self-discipline.