IMPACT OF PARENTING STYLES ON THE SEXUAL AWARENESS AND DATING BEHAVIOUR IN TEENAGERS ININDIA : A CASE STUDY IN LUCKNOW

Parenting style is one of the major determinants of teenagers behavioral pattern. This study examines the effect of parenting styles - authoritarian, authoritative, permissive and mixed, on the sexual awareness and dating behavior of adolescents in age group 17- 22 years in urban Lucknow, India. It is a primary survey, which uses stratified purposive sampling technique. The survey was done from May 2025 to June 2025. Pearson's correlation coefficient technique was used to find out different correlations. According to the study, authoritative parenting was found to foster a strong positive correlation with the sexual awareness and ability to make informed choices. But even these adolescents were not very open about their dating behavior with their parents because they found the environment at home strict or disapproving enough for sharing it. The study concludes that though authoritative parenting style equips adolescents regarding sexual awareness, but this is not enough for the adolescents to be able to share their sexual lives with their parents. So the school can help adolescents by imparting structured sex education. School can also hire guardians allotted to adolescents so that they can share their intimate problems and psychologists which can counsel the children if needed.