Abstract
The study investigated parenting styles as predictors of academic stress among students in Aguata Education Zone of Anambra State, Nigeria. The study which was guided by four null hypotheses adopted a correlational research design. The population of the study was 2,952 Senior Secondary Two (SS2) students of 2023/2024 session from the 69 public secondary schools in the Aguata Education Zone. The sample size consisted of 296 SS2 students sampled using proportionate stratified random sampling technique. The Parenting Styles Questionnaire (PSQ) and Students’ Academic Stress Questionnaire (SASQ) with reliability indices of 0.76 and 0.80 were the instruments used for data collection. The hypotheses 1 – 3 were tested with t-test associated with linear regression while hypothesis 4 was tested with ANOVA associated with multiple regression at 0.05 level of significance using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) software. The results showed that there is a significant predictive power of authoritarian, authoritative and permissive parenting styles on academic stress among secondary school students. The result also revealed a significant joint predictive power of the parenting styles on academic stress among secondary school students The study recommended among others that Parents should as much as possible avoid the parenting style that highly promote academic stress in their children.

Keywords
Secondary Education, Secondary School Students, Academic Stress, Authoritarian Parenting Style, Authoritative Parenting Style, Permissive Parenting Style.