Parenting in Arivu: An ethnographic study of the parenting practices in an Ugandan sub-county

Abstract

The way parents raise their children influences the development of the child. However, what good parenting is may differ across cultures. The Dutch non-governmental organization Help a Child plans to implement a parenting training in Arivu, a sub county in Uganda, in order to improve the parenting skills. The main goal of this research is to describe the current parenting situation in this area by using an ethnographic approach. This description of the current parenting situation will help to adapt the training to the needs of the parents and to set up a baseline for the evaluation of Help a Child’s training. Four main challenges for parents in Arivu were found by free listing and deepened in focus group discussions and in-depth interviews: Lack of resources like food and money, disobedience of children, parents’ avoidance of responsibilities and failing marriages. The results from these three qualitative instruments were used to design a quantitative questionnaire, which also can be used for evaluation after the training. Disciplining was said to occur often in the community by beating or caning, but self-report in the questionnaire showed less corporal punishments. The community said to show love to children by giving clothes and meat on special days, but when the questionnaire gave the option of showing love by spending time together, this was reported often as well. The use of alcohol makes parents to misbehave and avoid their responsibilities, which makes children disobedient and causes parents to separate.