Parenting Through Widowhood: Measuring Self-Efficacy in Raising School-Age Children

Widowed parents must continue meeting their children’s developmental and educational needs while adjusting to the loss of a spouse, making parenting self-efficacy an important concern. This study measured the self-efficacy of widowed parents in raising school-age children and examined differences and relationships according to age, sex, educational attainment, number of school-age children, and year of spousal death. A correlational survey design was used with 43 widowed parents whose children attended six elementary schools in urban and rural areas of Bayawan City, Philippines. The Widowed Parenting Self-Efficacy Scale was used, and data were analyzed using weighted mean, one-way ANOVA, independent-samples t-test, and Pearson correlation. Urban and rural respondents both reported “mildly agree” levels of self-efficacy, with mean scores of 4.03 and 4.30, respectively. No significant differences were found by age, sex, educational attainment, number of school-age children, or year of spousal death, and no significant relationships were found for age, number of children, or year of spousal death. Widowed parents generally perceived themselves as capable of raising their school-age children, suggesting that parenting self-efficacy may depend more on personal and contextual experiences than on basic demographic characteristics.

Social Science, Education

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