Take a trip down memory lane, how did your parents try to manage your behaviour. Were they controlling, guiding or just laid back. Chances are that you probably use the same techniques to discipline your own offspring. We all would have learnt from experiences throughout our own childhood.
The way your parents brought you up is probably the same way you are raising your children right now.
Diana Baumrind (1967) suggests that there are three parenting styles used by parents to help children with behaviour.
The three types of parenting styles are:
Authoritarian – a parent who likes to control.
Authoritative – someone who leads and gives guidance.
Permissive (Laissez-faire) – an anything goes, laid back casual approach. (Children are people too, a parent’s guide to young children’s behaviour. Louise Porter, 2001)
Controlling parents have strict rules that must be followed. They try to have power over their children and issue commands at all times. And issue demands and are unresponsive. There is no room for failure to comply with these rules they make or punishment will be the result. These children have a tendency to be more reserved, more apprehensive, unhappy and have low self esteem. Confrontational, angry and unwilling to persist with most tasks that they encounter. Children of controlling parents are unable to make decisions on their own and sometimes can become self-destructive (Baumrind 1977).
Authoritative parenting still have limits on their children but encourage them to be more independent and to make their own decisions, giving guidance when needed. Using this technique with children seem to create a more cooperative child. When requested to perform a task they see it as being fair and reasonable. These children tend to be more self-confident when it comes to dealing with their own needs, they have a confidence in their parents that they will always be there for them, listen to their needs. In doing this, these parents will create a child that will develop trust for others either in business or just in family life.
Permissive parents are responsive but not demanding. Tending to be more lenient and tolerant. These parents are very nurturing and accept children’s needs and wants. Letting children make their own decisions early in their life even if they are not capable of doing so. No rules or boundaries are set and children are made to feel as though they are free. Children raised by lenient parents can have higher self-esteem and better social skills but are inclined to have behaviour problems.
These parenting styles teach our children and can be a great influence on how they develop and socialise throughout their learning years and into adulthood.
Nobody is an expert at raising children, there is no handbook to follow but using a little from each style can be the best approach.
Studied child psychology to help understand my teen age daughter better. Check out my sites KIDSLOT and WEIGHT LOSS
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