Many things go into raising a good child who will grow up to become a happy adult. These things range from education, genes, health, environment and above all, parenting.
Parenting is the most crucial aspect of a growing child. It influences how they think and their general mentality towards the outside world. Parents have profound and long-lasting effects on who their child grows up to become.
Some certain styles of parenting tend to promote the necessary things a child need to become a responsible, independent and happy individual, while others do the reverse.
The question is now what kind of a parent are you?
There are four styles of parenting which are:
1. Authoritative: These parents are firm but not harsh or aggressively corrective.
They are open to compromise. They teach their children constructive relationship and modification skills.
They are capable of tough love when necessary but they love their children. They aim to raise children who will grow up to be well adjusted, independent, capable of empathy which is the cornerstone of a good relationship.
2. Permissive: Kids believed this style of parenting is cool. This is because this set of parents lets their kids do what pleases them. They confuse love to mean giving their kids everything they want, no rules and no boundaries.
This is not to say that this set of parents are not involved in their kid’s lives, they are but in a hands-off kind of way. They never say No to their children, it is up to the child to decide if something is bad or not.
Their children end up being moody, spoilt, self-absorbed, rebellious and unable to handle life when things don’t go their way.
3. Authoritarian: Parenting like this spends more time demanding things for their children and are less responsive to the child’s needs. These parents are highly controlling, what they do most is to issue commands, criticize and occasional praise, but hardly show love or warmth toward their kids.
They expect their kids to follow their instructions without any explanation, and may sometimes use emotional blackmail to get their ways.
Some extreme authoritarian parents resort to physical abuse in an attempt to control their children.
4. Neglectful: Some parents deny their children what it means to have loving parents. They are so caught up in themselves that they never have time for their children. Some of them are workaholic’s who don’t have time for parenting so instead, they leave their children in the care of other people.
While some are too busy fighting all the time that they hardly have time for their children. These children grow up to have very low self-esteem and are very needy. They don’t have a sense of who they are or how to navigate the world.
Which is the Best type of parenting?
Authoritative parents are the best. They provide positive support, high expectations and a lot of opportunities to try things out and are more likely to take children who are confident, motivated, and with good critical thinking skills.
These parents make demands that tally with their children’s ability to take responsibility for their actions, which makes them competent and independent.
Our personalities as individuals are different. This means that your temperaments, backgrounds and values are greatly inconsistent, and will affect how you respond to your children as a parent and how your children will respond to you.
As a parent, you must find a style that suits your personality and that of your child, however, every style of parent that works for you can be fine-tuned to help you raise happy and productive children.
