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Abstract

The transition to university life often poses significant emotional and social challenges for first-year students. Parenting styles and self-critical tendencies have been identified as key psychological factors influencing students’ adjustment during this critical phase. The current study was conducted with the main objective to find out the relationship among perceived parenting, self-criticism, and adjustment problems in first year college students. A correlational research design with a non-probability purposive sampling technique was employed to recruit a sample of 330 first-year college students, aged between 15 and 17 years (M=16.05, SD=0.79) from private and government colleges of Lahore. The findings revealed that rejection and overprotection were positively associated with self-criticism and adjustment problems, whereas emotional warmth and favouring subject were negatively associated with these outcomes. Regression analysis showed that rejection and overprotection significantly predicted higher adjustment problems, while emotional warmth and favouring subject predicted fewer adjustment problems. Additionally, female students reported greater adjustment difficulties than males. The study concludes that parenting styles play a critical role in shaping self-criticism and adjustment problems in first-year college students, with supportive parenting serving as a protective factor and rejecting or overprotective parenting increasing vulnerability, particularly among females.