Self Efficacy

Self-Efficacy:

Self-Efficacy is the believe that one is competent to perform in a particular manner to achieve certain goals, or the sense of one’s competent within a specific framework based on their potential abilities, (Shohov, 2004). This essay focuses on the effect of self-efficacy on parenthood.

Marriage is a social institution where the main stakeholders, father and mother, are expected to deliver on their duty of parenthood. Both parents are required to mold the lives of their children morally, socially, spiritually and academically. This has not been the case with Mary, a house wife, who feels she is not competent to mold the conduct of her two teenage sons.

Mary believes it is the responsibility of the husband and the teachers to ensure an upright behavior of her sons. The boys have been engaging in drug abuse and attending late night clubs. Though Mary notices this, she feels she is not able to warn or punish them and all she can do is to threaten them that she will report the matter to their father or the school principal.

Mary’s altitude towards her sons makes continue to diminish her self-efficacy regarding parenthood. Her husband Paul contributes in deteriorating her self-efficacy since he never encourages her handle the matter herself as a mother, but rather he asks her to report the boys’ ill behavior to him whenever he comes home- he comes home once in a month. This worsens the conduct of the boys as they continue to master the weakness of their mother.

Low self-efficacy of a person may result from various reasons. First, a person’s self-efficacy may be low if they are hesitant to make an attempt. One’s negligence to try to do something may lead to the notion that they cannot excel on that thing. The competence of performing any

Self-Efficacy

action is realized only by performing it. People have different talents and potentials and when they fail to utilize them, they become vestigial thereby proofing the individual’s low self-efficacy, (Urdan & Pajares, 2006).

The influence from the people in one’s life; family, occupation or education, determines the nature of self-efficacy in that person. Delegation of various duties to an employee makes them realize what they are capable of doing. Likewise a parent’s responsibility on parenthood yields a high self-efficacy. If weak student is not given moral support to boost their weakness and instead they are regarded as academically poor, their self-efficacy decreases and feel they can never perform. Agreeing with a person’s notion that they are not competent in certain fields injures their self-efficacy.

To improve self-efficacy, one has to take the challenge of attempting what they think they are not capable of doing. Even in fields where one is weak, more efforts should be employed to eradicate the weakness rather than sticking to the mentality that they can never excel in those fields. People fail to perform in some actions not because they are not capable but because they fail to practice on the same.

Emphasis on encouraging weak individuals in various fields should be aimed at improving their self-efficacy. A person should not be denied a chance to do a certain task just because they are perceived as weak, but rather they should be presented with the opportunity to improve their weaknesses by regular practice on the task. Moral support should be applied to boost the efficacy of the apparently weak individuals. Mary should put more efforts in controlling her kids’ conduct and her husband should encourage her to do so, thus raise her self-efficacy on parenthood, (Shohov, 2004).

References:

Self-Efficacy

Urdan & Pajares (2006). Self-Efficacy Beliefs of Adolescents: IAP, 2006

Shohov (2004). Advances in Psychology Research, Volume 16: Nova Publishers, 2004