Parental involvement in Mvula Occult and School Adjustment of their Five to Seven Year Old Children in Chonyi Division, Kilifi South Sub county, Kilifi County- Kenya

Abstract

The study is a deliberate effort to investigate relationships between children of parents involved in the ‘Mvula’ occult and their school adjustment in Chonyi division Kilifi south sub County of Kilifi County. Challenges include the role of the environment in personality development, causes of and emotional regulation of learners being subject to discussion and research on matters affecting the cases and classmates. As much as there could be influence of spiritual interference in school adjustment in the said cases, the researcher took an academic inquiry into the problem, pegged on Urie Bronfenbrenners’ Ecological Contextual Theory which contends that children school adjustment and their ability to meaningfully gain from school experiences and transit to higher grades while gaining experience and advancing in development of personality to subject to environmental system. Bronfenbrenner refer to the system as Meso system, Exo system and Chrono system. The research was guided by the following objectives: what social problems do the children face? What emotional regulation difficulties do such children face? What learning problems do the study cases face? What effect has the teachers’ attitude have on the said learners? And lastly, what interventions have the schools enacted to address school adjustment problems in their schools. the research targeted a population of 100 that covered school heads, lower primary and ECDE teachers, children’s of parents involved in the occult practice and control learners who are peers to the target from the preschool to class three in the age bracket 5-7 years the study employed mixed methods for collecting data with intensions to supplement information source from another and triangulate an issue by using varied data source. The data was gathered using questionnaires, interviews, class observations and secondary sources and subjects to SPSS. The findings of this research indicated that the children whose parents are involved in the ‘Mvula’ occultist practices have extensive school adjustment problems culminating to dropping from school the research discovered that phenomenon continue to worsen as schools have taken no action or neglect enacting structures to address the school adjustment difficulties. This study recommends a strategic programme that encompasses Christian approaches to address the Spiritual aspects of Emotional regulation, combined with specialized training for the teachers and preparation and implementation of the scheme of services to pre schools teachers and whole school policies that inculcate pedagogy, counseling and monitoring and evaluation instruments graced with a performance contract for the teacher and board of management and further longitudinal research on the dreams of children of parents involved in ‘Mvula’ occult in relation to their Emotional Regulation and delinquency