The Aspects of Parenting - Coursework Example

Parenting Parenting is the act of assisting and encouraging child development physically, emotionally, socially, financially and intellectually from babyhood to adulthood. Parenting or child raising styles have a substantial influence on the child’s cognitive development and behavior. The four types of parenting styles include authoritative, authoritarian, permissive and disengaged parenting styles (Steinberg, 2011). Such factors as social class, affluence, culture and earnings determine the child rearing method applied by parents. This paper will critically examine the way parents remain influential in a person’s life, since they are important teachers and behavioral models for their children from infancy to adolescence and even adulthood. It is also going to assess the social issues like divorce and treating children as confidants and how they influence infants and adolescents behavior. Generally, teens raised by authoritative parents display high levels of responsibility, self confidence, curiosity, flexibility, creativity and higher levels of social and academic skills compared to other teens . The reason for such children showing the above-mentioned traits is that authoritative parenting style relies on positive reinforcement and the application of retributive justice. The child’s autonomy is supported within reasonable limits, and the child-parent communication takes place in a reciprocity mood. Both parental support and control are at equilibrium, and parents holding talks to their children with regard to their emotions. A study on poor urban girls indicated that girls raised by authoritative mothers proved to be the best in terms of adaptation (DeVore & Ginsburg, 2005). There was less likelihood of these girls’ involvement in sexual activities, having a pregnancy or being delinquent. This behavior can be attributed to the parent family connectedness, whereby adolescents feel parental warmth, care and love. Adolescents from families with high levels of parent-family connectedness are less likely to get involved in sexual activities, drug abuse and other forms of juvenile delinquency. Authoritarian parenting style is one in which parents are inflexible and harsh, less supportive with high expectations. Authoritarian parents apply harsh punishment for their kids, ignoring their feelings and emotions. Such parents raise more dependent and unassertive teens with weaker social skills and less intellectual curiosity (Steinberg, 2011). These teens are dull, more moody and prone to stress, and always rely on corrections and punishments, hence not autonomous. Permissive or indulgent parenting style values the child’s autonomy, and parents use reasoning and exegesis rather than punishment. Since these parents are less demanding, they raise teens that are less mature, responsible, incapable of adopting leadership roles and receptive to peers pressure. Usually such teens are not disciplined since their parents take them to be independent of external constraints. This style is correlated to indifferent parenting, where parents are less supportive and have low conjecture. Teens raised in an indifferent family are more impetuous and delinquent than others, more likely to get involved in substance abuse. Social factors like divorce also shape children’s behavior largely, whose ramifications are evident during adolescence. When marital conflicts before a divorce are exposed to kids, they influence their behavior negatively. However, research shows that parenting quality is more important the number of parents. Youths in divorce families tell of their parents’ friendliness and positive mood being higher than those of their peers are. Genetically, the traits of those parents, who do not divorce in aggression, atrocity, liability to emotional and behavioral problems can be transferred to their children. Divorce has a more negative impact on the behavior of boys, younger children and those without supportive relationships outside the family. These teens may end up using drugs, performing poorly in school, having behavioral problems and problems in relating with other people during adulthood. Teens also experience some problems during remarriage, with girls being the most affected group, since it difficult for them to adjust to remarriage. Parental employment also tends to influence children’s behavior, especially girls from families with working mothers. Daughters whose mothers are working have high career expectations; hence more hardworking in school than boys who in this case have lower academic aspirations. The boys in these families constantly involve themselves in arguments with family members, and have to do with the boys not willing to emulate their mothers. Lower parental income affects negatively on parenting, affecting teens’ behavior in such families. Such adolescents have a high probability of being the victims of violence, feelings of alienation from school and stress. The parent-child relationship has a role in shaping children’s in a family, as is the case with friendly, rational and responsive parents. These parents have a strong moral influence on their teenagers, compared to harsh, irrational and irresponsive parents. These relationships can further protect teens from dangerous behavior, especially when they are based on trust and open communication. In addition, close supervision is also important as far as protecting teens from dangerous behaviors is concerned. Parents who share negative life experiences are likely to impact negatively on their children’s behavior since this might result in stressing them out (Gwen, 2013). Dear John, I hope you are doing fine since the last time we talked. I am writing to you with regard to your parents’ influence and control of your life. During our last conversation, you raised concerns on the strict nature of your parents and the kind of freedom you were anticipating for. To be sincere, your parents want you to be the best boy, just like you would wish your children to be the best in future. I am sincerely sorry for the feelings of oppression you have but at the same time would like to say the following regarding the importance of your parents’ influence, especially at your age. Primarily, your parents lead by example by showing you the beliefs they follow. It is out of their high expectations for your bright future that they encourage you to model them, and punish you when you go contrary to their expectations. Therefore, whatever punishment you are subjected to after wrongdoing should not be taken in bad faith. You should rather take it as a correction, meant to show you the right way to the brighter future. Remember that your parents are your primary and most important teachers in your life. As teachers who love their dearest student, they would not want the worst for you. In whatever they tell you or rather encourage you to do, they are simply imparting knowledge and skills you require in your future life. You get inspired through their motivation when they give you encouragement especially when you do something positive. In the same way, they provide discipline through the positive and negative consequences of your actions. They simply teach you to be a more responsible member of society, who can make sound judgments. The same way it would hurt you in future to see your children go astray, your parents are the most hurt people when you go contrary to societal expectations. Remember that them being your basic instructors, their primary obligation is to teach you morals so that you can be able to differentiate between what is right or wrong. Your parents show how empathically connected they are to you by their expression of concern for their feelings for you, showing how much they care. Therefore, try your best to be obedient to these noble instructors of your life in order to gain the knowledge and most importantly wisdom for your future prosperity. Yours sincerely, James Harper. The parent-child relationship is crucial for mental and physical development of children. Family is the primary social structure and most of the influence on an individual’s behavior takes place at the family level. This relationship is likely to benefit both parties, with the parents getting an easy time to impart knowledge and morals on their kids. The children’s confidence on the other hand is greatly boosted, promoting the give and take atmosphere that is important in sharing teens and parents’ experiences. A healthy parent-child relationship makes children take punishment and correction positively and improve on their character. Positive reinforcement on the other hand encourages continuation of morally acceptable behavior, thus producing very responsible members of society. The view of the society that parents are not important at adolescence is supported by the fact that such parenting styles as authoritarian, permissive and disengaged can result in behavioral problems for the youth. This is due to hostile interactions shown by negative emotions between parents and youngsters and the dependent nature of youths raised by authoritarian parents. Disengaged parents on the other hand raise delinquents, who in most cases are vulnerable to sexual behaviors and drug use. In the same way, divorced or separated parents and those that remarry affect their children’s psychology in a number of ways, and this significantly affect their social behavior. When parents work to support independence on one hand, research shows that they protract dependence on the other hand. The parents discourage accountable education for their teens when they force them to learn responsibility from mistakes by saving them from effects of poor choices. Authoritarian parents who punish to correct, say bad attitude is more likely to increase negativity of those adolescents. This shows that criticism and punishment do much harm that construction in the teen’s attitude contrary to parents’ belief. Power struggle is common between youths and parents, with either party seeking dominance over the other. A parent can always win but that will only repress the feelings of the teenager at that moment, implying that there is a greater possibility of a stronger adversary during the next struggle. Those parents that engage in arguments with their teens in order to stop certain behaviors actually encourage them to engage in such behaviors. The type of parenting practice teens are subjected to has a great influence on their behavior, positively or negatively. Good parenting maximizes the youth’s potential whereas poor parenting can encourage their participation in dangerous behaviors (DeVore & Ginsburg, 2005). This may result in drug and substance abuse, involvement in sexual relationships that may result in infections, long-term impairments and even death. It is therefore advisable for parents to adopt the authoritative parenting style since it has proved to be the most effective in handling teens. Parental monitoring guidance and communication are paramount for healthy adolescent development. Parents should find effective ways of correcting their children’s wrong doings without blaming or criticizing them (Wagner, 2008). Promoting positive connection for children outside the family and restrictive strategies are also significant for effective parenting. The effects of poverty can be done away with by social support services and religious affiliations. It is also important not to expose marital struggles as well as the parents’ negative struggles to the teens, since it results in stress thus interfering with their emotional development. Relevant institutions like the government should invest in research for the purposes of addressing the challenges in parenting. References DeVore, E. R., & Ginsburg, K. R. (2005). Adolescent Development: The protective effects of good parenting. Current Opinion in Pediatrics, 17:460—465. Gwen, D. (2013). Should parents be friends with their kids? Parenting Science. Retrieved from: http://www.parentingscience.com/parents-be-friends.html Steinberg, L. (2011). Adolescence. New York: McGrow Hill. Wagner, J. S. (2008). When play turns to trouble. Many parents are now wondering: how much is too much? US news & world report, 144(14):51-3. Read More