The Effects of Parenting Style and Adolescent Character on Adolescent Spirituality During The Pandemic

Parenting adolescents during the pandemic is a considerably challenging endeavour. The parenting style of families constitutes a crucial factor in the shaping of adolescent characters and spirituality. Family is primary socialization through which adolescents develop their character and spirituality. Parenting patterns in adolescents have a significant impact on their personality and spirituality. This is evidenced in the love of God. This research employed an ex post facto design. The results revealed that parenting styles families adopted during the pandemic impacted adolescent characters and spirituality. The data analysis showed an interaction between parenting style variables and adolescent characters and the spirituality of Batak adolescents indicated by the R square value of 97.1%.


Introduction
The Covid-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc with life regularity and routine in terms of education, businesses, and family relationships. Research conducted in Germany shows that family life has been shifted as anxiety unravelled the seams of harmony. 1 Consequently, specific impacts on people's mental health and well-being in Canada emerged and thus are captured, such as stress, negative emotional response, substance use, suicidal attempts or self-harm inclinations. Besides, parents become more aware of the changes in their interaction with their children. 2 The changes in the way families interact with each other during the covid-19 Pandemic has affected the harmony that families once enjoyed before. It is a fact that family is a fundamental nuclear group in a society of which aggregates form a nation. A nation comprises a large number of populations inhabiting a certain geographical location and sharing commonalities such as language, traditions, race, and so on. The formation of a strong nation rests unequivocally on the families as the basic building blocks. This is where good Christian families play a pivotal role.
According to Yust Christian families constitutes a primary place of nurturing children in the life of loving the Lord and having an image of God-loved and called ones. 3 This enables adolescents to adapt to the culture and communicate their faith.
Children's understanding of the Lord is shaped by their relationship with their earthly parents. The excellent way of nurturing children is through a life lived out in reflecting God's characters which is key to maintaining children's communion with God. Loving them with unconditional love within a clearly defined boundary provides a foundation on which they experience the love and holiness of the Lord. 4 Parents are confronted with the fact that they need to raise their children well and instill in them the Christian values even more. Therefore, it is imperative that parents hold their status in high esteem as they play an important part in bringing forth mature Christian believers. Parents have their own distinctive way of parenting. Since Indonesia has a variety of ethnic cultures, each culture will display different parental style which results in a distinct effect on the raising of the children.
The digital era has brought on changes in many ways including parenting style. The notable challenge that Indonesian families need to deal with in the digital world is finding the best possible strategies to bring their children up. The influence of digital technology pervades the parental style and exerts an effect on the habits and behaviors of children. The infusion of technological gadget is evidenced by children and parents' frequent use and involvement in sorts of social media, youtube, and chatroom that hinder the interpersonal relationship through communication. The seemingly physical proximity does not guarantee the connectedness and close interaction between family members. The research conducted reveals that parenting stylehas a significant impact on children's uses of digital technology. 5 The focus of this study is on the Batak parenting style. The selection of the ethnic group of Batak is based on the consideration that Batak has a unique cultural value with its authoritarian parenting which is predominantly directed toward the obedience of the children to God's precepts and family regulations. 6 In the context of the Batak family, parents will socialize children into behaviors aligned with the Batak cultural values, namely "hasangapon, hamoraon, and hagabeon". For the Batak, success and its value are the fundamental things on which their lives are founded. They may gain wealth (hamaraon) and honor (hasangapon) through education. The higher the level of education children earn in a family, the more honorable the family will be in the eyes of the society. 7 The well-preserved culture in the Batak tradition and the demands of parents for success and wealth increasingly become a pressure rather than a positive motivation adolescent to lead their lives. In the same manner, it is a burden for Batak adolescents to realize the ideal of "hamaraon" and "hasangapon" through education when they are not able.
Christian parents need to ensure the nurturing of their childrens' character through the growth of spirituality that they are enabled to cope with any challenges they face in the future and rise into the "moment" in their own context The family spirituality should be a yardstick to the nurturing, caring, and upbringing of the children in conformity with the teachings of the scripture in Deuteronomy 6:4-9. Parenting style affects the development of character traits. The researcher conducted an early stage of observation on the activities of adolescents in GBKP Depok Lenteng Agung (Batak Karo Protestant Church). Several things emerged: adolescents used their cellphones during the service that they ignored. After the service was over, they huddled together to play online games. They smoked cigarettes, played truant. They dated others from different beliefs. To notice an indecent character and requires an appropriate response from parents and the church.
Churches need to develop adolescents' spirituality by involving the engagement of Christian teachers and pastors / deacons in providing guidance for the development of spirituality. The spirituality in the Christianity is demonstrated by 'putting on a new man' as in the Ephesians 4: 21-24 stressing that Jesus came into the world to give an example and teachings to guide people into the truth according to God's will. Thus, Christians who put on a new man can cultivate their spirituality because their spirits have been enlivened and their minds renewed. The Holy Spirit will lead Christians to walk with God and unveil the truth according to God's will. This study is aimed at determining the effect of parenting style and adolescent characters on the spirituality of Batak adolescents.

Parenting Style
Ajayi, Kirika, Mavole argue that family serves as the smallest social unit where people have love and affection that they demonstrate in a genuine and sincere manner. 8 Christian family needs to demonstrate the basic social human nature. It is vital that Christian families are grounded in their faith and filled with love that they are able to nurture the relationship among individuals in the house and properly respond to the existing culture.
Parents play a pivotal role in the lives of children because they provide an influential parental style as revealed in Gina's research. 2 Parenting style is made up of two words "parenting and style". "Style" means a way, a model, a system, a manner of doing. While parenting is associated with the nurturing (caring for and educating), guiding (supporting, training). It can thus be inferred that, firstly, parenting style represents interactions with children. Secondly, it refers to the attitudes and behaviors that parents show toward their children. Thirdly, it deals with parental behavior patterns in relating to children.
Ebrahimi argued that parents represent God in human relationship which is a crucial principle. 9 That God gives responsibility to Christian parents for raising their children in the way they should go that they need to abide by the teachings of the Bible in doing so. Parents are not caregivers in the social development of the children but also the instruments in bringing them to live under the divine light of the words.
Factors that influence the parenting style which parents adopt comprise external and internal factors. Zahra argued that the internal factor which is greatly influential is irrational and obsessive fear and anxiety they may nurse toward things or people that results in a wide range of problems in terms of the parental style. 10 It is manifested in the overprotective mediation which affects the character of children.
Whereas external factors according to Salim encompass: firstly, where a family life which includes the social environment. Secondly, the culture that preveails upon the society will impact the parenting style. Thirdly, the socio-economic status of the family has an effect on different perspectives regarding how parents should raise children and what children may deserve to get. 11 Parenting style in the Bible, according to Boehlke constitutes an education in the Jewish community which is generally concerned with the injunction every family especially father has to perform to pass the legacy of the Jewish faith on to the next generations (Deu. 6: 4-9). 12 Parents bring their children up by sharing the law with the young generations through meaningful accounts of the pilgrimage journey of faith of the Jews (Psa. 78:2-4).

Adolescent Character
Good character stems from one's doing the right actions to himself and others on a daily basis 13 . Character is often defined as a distinctive quality that set a person apart from others since it relates the principles and values of life, he has that influence his thought, attitude, and behavior 14 . In line with the opinion above, Sidjabatargues that character constitutes traits of a person that is evident in his attitudes, feelings, thoughts, and actions. 15 Character is formed through one's repeated actions of observing, imitating, identifying himself with individuals in the family, his immediate social environment and the social circles beyond including the ethnic community. Character results from the integration of one's learning with his individual genetic factor and through interventive actions of God in circumstances.
Character education is a conscious, systematic, and continuous efforts directed toward the building up of characters in adolescents through the knowledge of the right (cognitive dimension), the love for what is good (affective dimension), and doing rightly in life (psychomotor and behavioral aspects). Character are qualities that evolve over time through repeatedly doing what is right in compliance with the standards of behavior in every situation. The emphasis lies in the virtuous actions or responses driven by certain qualities or inner motivations. Thus, the virtues sink deeply in the fiber of human beings leading to character. 16 There are many types of character according to Lickona mentioned wisdom (the ability to make good and reasonable decisions, knowing how to practice virtue and distinguish what is important and what is not in life, and determine priorities), justness (knowing correct values, respecting others, demonstrating responsibility, honesty, courtesy, and tolerance), grit (showing courage, flexibility, patience, persistence, resilience, and self-confidence), self-control (displaying discipline, ability to manage emotions, withholding or delaying gratification, and resisting temptation), love (showing empathy, kindness, generosity, willingness to serve others, loyalty, and patriotism), a positive attitude (showing hope, enthusiasm, and a sense of humor), hard work (demonstrating an initiative, diligence, ability to set informed and calculated goals), integrity (holding fast to moral code, principles, being accountable for what are spoken, ethical consistency, and honesty), gratitude (developing a habit of being thankful, cherishing the acts of kindness done by others, and refusing to complain), and humility (showing self-awareness, willingness to admit mistakes, take responsibility for mistakes and striving to better). 17 Adolescents can be trained to develop the above-mentioned types of characters because the characters are formed through the learning process and the developing of a mindset focused on values as such that it requires a considerably long process.

Christian Spirituality
According to Tanudjaja 18 the basis of Christian spirituality is God's initiative and man's response aligned with the faith given. However, it serves as the starting point that must proceed on with the process of sanctifying of the believers (Eph. 4:23, Col 3:10). God's grace enables the transformation of a person to become like Christ. This is done through the enablement of the indwelling Holy Spirit (Titus 3: 5) that man can be conformed to the likeness of God for the glory of God according to God's purpose before the world began (Eph. 2: 1-10).
Christian spirituality does not impose a certain model or ignore the development of time. It relies on our coming forward to the Lord as a spiritual exercise that one can discern what to expect and strive to According to Siahaanspiritual living comes from within and is expressed through the outward actions on a daily basis that issue in the fellowship with the fellow believers and God in Christ (being). The expression in words and deeds reveals the constitution and morality of the kingdom of heaven (doing). 20 The relationship with the church and God in Christ is manifested in the relationship with fellow human beings in the family, community, and social environments. Spirituality is nothing but the style and attitude of Christ, a life lived with Christ, for Christ and unto Christ. Whereas, Teoargued that genuine Christian spirituality is made evident in the mission of Christ. 21 Jesus becomes a central model in carrying out his mission and vocation and as Christians we need to live out God's mission.

Method
The method employed in investigating the questions in this research is quantitative using Ex Post Facto research design. Ex post facto research is deemed appropriate to be used in the situations where it is not possible to manipulate certain variables in order to investigate their potential influence on other variables. 22 Ex post facto research is aimed at discovering the facts which have occurred and have been marked by changes such as behaviors, symptoms, phenomena that result in the change of the independent variable as a whole 23 .
There are 35 Batak adolescents, and 35 parents were selected as the sample. The parenting style variable (X1) has some indicators: emotional warmth, punitive discipline, anxiety disorders, autonomy support, permissive parenting, democratic parenting. Furthermore, the adolescent character variable (X2) is concerned with the relationship with others: loving and caring attitude, relationship with God, relationship with others: loving and peace-making, personal responsibility.
The dependent variable is the spirituality of the Batak adolescent. The adolescent spirituality variable (Y) has indicators such as frequency of attendance, the motivation for attending the services, becoming a testimony for Christ, knowledge of self-spirituality, self-assessment regarding the church, community, leadership, and spiritual growth.

Figure 1. Relationship among variables
In terms of the instruments employed in this research, the researcher used questionnaire which had been previously validated. The Likert scale questions for parenting style, 24 adolescent character, 25 and spirituality were used. SPSS 23 was used for analysis.

Result of Research
The validity of the questions was assessed using Cronbach Alpha Coefficient. The calculation revealed that the respective Cronbach's alpha value for the parenting was 0.887, for the adolescent character 0.895, and for the adolescent spirituality 0.905.
The normality of the data was tested on the following criteria. The significance value < 0,05 indicated that Ho (normal distribution) is rejected whilst significance value > 0,05 means that Ho (normal distribution) is accepted.
The testing using Kolmogorof-Smirnov shown in the Table 1  character, and spirituality was 0.200 (p>0.05) signifying that Ho is accepted and thus, it can be inferred that the data for parenting style, adolescent character and adolescent spirituality has a normal distribution.   Table 2 shows that the significance value (2-tailed) is <0.05, indicating a significant relationship between parenting style, adolescent character, and adolescent spirituality. The sign indicates a significant correlation at the 0.00 level. The Pearson's correlation coefficient was used to determine the relationship between parenting style and adolescent character variable, which was 0.908**, meaning that there was a very significant relationship. The relationship between parenting style and adolescent spirituality was 0.984**, indicating that both had a very significant relationship. The correlation value for the relationship The Effects of Parenting Style … (Lidia Susanti,Candra Tarigan) 193 between adolescent character and spirituality was 0.911**, signifying a significant relationship. Parenting style and adolescent character contribute to the extent of spirituality as indicated by R Squared value in Table 3 which is the 97.1%. Based on the multiple regression test in Table 4, the significance value for the extent of the parenting style and adolescent character's effect on adolescent spirituality was 0,00 (p<0,05), then Ho was rejected. It means that simultaneously the parenting style and the adolescent character had an effect on the adolescent spirituality.  Table 5 shows a significant effect indicated by the significance value of 0.00 < 0.05 for the parenting style variable meaning that parenting style had a significant impact on adolescent spirituality. Whilst significance value for the adolescent character is 0.172 > 0.05, meaning that there was no significant effect in terms of its partial relationship.

The Effect of Parenting Style on the Adolescent Spirituality
Based on the data analysis regarding the the effect of parenting style on the adolescent spirituality the normal distribution was proved by the value of 0.200 (p>0.05). The correlation test result reveals that the parenting style had a strong association with the spirituality which was indicated by the significance value of 0.00 and the value of Pearson Corelation Coeeficient was 0.984**. The significance of the relationship between the parenting style and spirituality is in line with the argument of Sidjabat 26 brings to light the influence the parenting style has on the development of spirituality of children.
Several factors that have an influence on the adolescent spirituality are as follows: 27 1) the emotional warmth includes the sense of being valued by parents, the showing of affection and love for children, providing ample time for children, meeting children's emotional needs, recognizing children's strengths; (2) Discipline in the form of punishment: losing temper, using threats, giving punishments or harsh discipline; 3) Anxiety; 4) Autonomy support: providing children with encouragement for choosing their interests and allowing children to experiment with something and learn independently; 5) Permissive parenting includes giving in to children, failing to correct children, not giving an example, letting children get away with behaviour problems.
Suppose parents neglect some factors above when they raise their children. In that case, it will give rise to imbalances in the child's psychology, as revealed in the research conducted by Shek that unfolds the fact that parents' responses concerning children's needs will affect the extent of children's addiction to the use of social media. 28 In the same vein as Shek's find, Mahoneyargued that parents' relationship with God will affect adolescents' psychological state and spirituality. 29 Parenting style is a decisive factor for adolescent spirituality because it provides them with a pattern or a distinctive model that is impressed upon them as they grow up. This corresponds with the argument of Costiganthat parenting style has a positive influence on the adolescent spiritual development. 30

The Effect of the Adolescent Character on the Spirituality
The data of the adolescent character's effect on adolescent spirituality is normally distributed, which was indicated by the value of 0.200 (p>0.05). The correlation test revealed the significance value of 0.00<0.05, meaning a significant relationship between the adolescent character and spirituality, whereas the obtained value of the Pearson Correlation coefficient was 0.911 showing that the adolescent character affected the spirituality.
According to Kim, the adolescent character is greatly influenced by several factors, namely: 31 1) Relationship with others by loving and caring for others; 2) Relationship with God manifested in a life characterized by trusting that God has a plan for his life, placing his hope in God, depending on God, patiently enduring adversities, being unceasingly thankful to God in every circumstance, serving God, confessing sins that he commits and asking for forgiveness; 3) Showing responsibility; making most of his time effectively, integrity as reflected in the consistent alignment between the words and deeds, carrying out the tasks assigned punctually and responsibly, managing finances, restraining from falsehood, and critically sizing up the problems he faces.
In the light of some indicators above, the adolescent character is greatly influenced by the above-mentioned factors. When adolescents do not have a good grasp of the importance of building a relationship with fellow human beings, God, and toward themselves, their spirituality will be affected. The adolescent chracacter has a significant influence on the spirituality. Furthermore, Sidjabat argued that adolescents have begun to develop an ability to reflect on their own faith that they may choose what and whom they can trust on the basis of their experiences and observation. 32 Adolescents feel that they know and are able to make decision on their own that they are developing characters to sift through what they see based on their personal observation and experience. This will prevent them from getting into bad companionship. Church pastoring and mentoring are of necessity to foster the good characters of adolescents.

The effect of the Association between the Parenting Style and the Adolescent Character on the Adolescent Spirituality
The parenting style and adolescent character variable contributed to the spirituality of Batak adolescents by 97.1%. The result of the ANOVA test conducted (F table) in Table 4 reveals the significant value of 0.00, meaning that the parenting style and the adolescent character had a significant effect on the adolescent spirituality because it is less than 0.05. The F calculated value of the parenting style and the adolescent character, which is 528.088 > F table value, reveals that the interaction existing between the variable of the parenting style and the adolescent character simultaneously affected the adolescent spirituality.
Rahmat argued that the role a family plays in raising children, as evident in their parenting style, is paramount because it results in children's characters. Parents need to wisely put into practice proper parenting style to foster a balanced growth of characters and spirituality. 33 When spirituality is not sufficiently nurtured in a family like what is stated in the research conducted by Rahayu and Amanah will impact the children's spiritual development. 34 The research reveals that it is apparent that Batak family demonstrates a good parenting style. They care for the education of their children, instil in them an understanding and fostering a habitual practice of attending church services, imparting the philosophies of Batak culture and socializing moral codes that are reflected in the relationship between the parenting style and spirituality that lead to the formation of the character of their children. Parenting adolescents needs to be effective in this digital era, 35 in order to ensure that it sufficiently exerts an effect on the development of the character of adolescents including Batak adolescents. Without effective and intensive interaction and communication between parents and their children, misunderstanding and disputes may arise from the distorted perception of how they may expect to gain from each other. In addition, parents of the millennial generation also need to be keenly aware of the potential pitfalls that stud their relationship in order to nurture and foster characters of their children because of the exposure to and immersion in technology.
Costigan argued that proper parenting style will have an influence on the positive development of children as it contributes to secured relationship with other people, developing competence, showing selfesteem, exemplary characters, and sense of caring for people around them. 36

Conclusion
The results revealed that parenting style and adolescent character made a significant contribution to the spirituality of Batak adolescents indicated at 97.1%. The significant relationship among variables can be evidenced by the F table value of 528.088 and sig 0.00. This shows that parenting style and adolescent character had an effect on the spirituality of Batak adolescents. The regression test divulged that parenting style had a significant relationship with the adolescent spirituality indicated by the significant value of 0.00, whilst the relationship between adolescent character and spirituality was not significant at the sig. value of 0.172.