Will
your parenting style influence your child’s development?
Parenting
is like a Chinese bamboo.
“Once the seed has been sown, you see nothing for
about five years, apart from a tiny shoot. All the growth takes place
underground, where a complex root system reaching upward and outward is being
established. Then, at the end of the fifth year, the bamboo suddenly shoots up
to a height of twenty-five meters.”
– extracted from Aleph by Paulo Coelho
Although
parenting is a challenging field, it can be very rewarding in experience and
self-development.
It can
make you see things in a different way when it comes to considering what is
best for your child. The style you adopt in raising your child will influence him
either positively, negatively or both in terms of psychological and behavioural
aspects.
Furthermore,
studies have found a correlation between parenting styles and school
competence, delinquency, violence, sexual activity, antisocial behaviour, alcohol
and substance abuse, depression, anxiety, and self-perception.
In the
early 1960s, Baumrind studied parenting styles and concluded these four
important areas:
- Parents’ warmth or nurturance
- Discipline strategy
- Communication skills
- Expectations of maturity
and
three parenting styles:
- Permissive
- Authoritarian
- Authoritative
On the
other hand, studies at a later date have revealed another parenting style on
top of the three styles above: Hands-off or uninvolved parenting.
Despite
the categorization of parenting styles, many parents appear to adopt a
combination of several styles. Nevertheless, this shall not be viewed as a
problem, as long as parents remain flexible in deciding the best practices for
the best of their children.
In the
following articles of the month, we will share more details on each of the
parenting styles.
Which
style are you?
- Whatis Your Parenting Style? (2): Permissive Parenting
- Whatis Your Parenting Style? (3): Authoritarian Parenting
- Whatis Your Parenting Style? (4): Authoritative Parenting
- Whatis Your Parenting Style? (5): Hands-off or uninvolved Parenting
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