Authoritative Parenting and Eriksons Theory of Psychosocial Development - Research Paper Example

Authoritative parents discuss choices, options, and decisions with their child (Lichtman 2011: 102) and let him know the pros and cons of, say, preferring one type of clothing to another. This makes him learn to make decisions through autonomy otherwise if a decision is forced on him, he enters shame and doubt. Initiative vs. Guilt (3-6 years) is the stage in which children need the motivation to initiate projects and play activities that help them build confident personalities, and the guilt or suppression can ruin their personalities for their entire lives.

Authoritative parents encourage their children to bring forward creative and innovative ideas in their close supervision and motivate them to explore through learning (Swinney 2007: 9). This “intrinsic motivation” (Benson & Haith 2009: 291) makes them initiate projects rather than enter into the guilt of mistakes.

Hence, authoritative parents give their children autonomy through communication and reasoning with logic and also encourage them to initiate and explore new ideas through intrinsic motivation and acceptance of mistakes.
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