Development of Problem Solving Skills among Pre-School Children: Assessment of Parenting Practices in Nigeria

This research assessed parent practices in the development of problem solving skills among pre-school children in Nigeria. The descriptive survey design was used for the study. The population for the study include all parents age 20 years and above from the 36 states and Federal Capital Territory (FCT). Purposive sampling technique was used to select six states of Oyo (Southwest), Ebonyi (Southeast), Edo (South south), Adamawa (Northeast), Kebbi (Northwest) and Plateau (North central) states. For each state, 5 Local Government Areas (LGAs) were selected and in each LGA, 20 parents participated in the study. The instrument used for the study is tagged Parental Interview Guide for Baseline Data on Parenting (PIG_BDP). The instrument was validated by test experts and reliability determined using Cronbach alpha at 0.81. This was then used for data collection.The data collected were analysed through simple percentages and mean. The findings shows that cultural /community practices problems, wrong religious related issues, poor teacher related factors, poor parenting style, nurturing care factors, negative learning environment/ funding factors, and poor interest were factors identified as affecting Problem solving skills development among preschoolers in Nigeria. Also, parents’ awareness of the needed knowledge for problem based learning skills development was poor. It was recommended among others that parents should be trained on positive handling problem based learning skills with their pre-school children.