Parents love their children. At the same time, children love their parents. One cannot measure who loves more – children or parents. Before becoming a parent, I thought maybe parents love their children more. But, nowadays my thinking has been changed. Now, I feel that my child loves me more than me. This is not universal, this is personal. It is my experience, maybe others have same or different feelings or thinking. The core thing is that parents and children love each other and due to that the relationship is so significant. If we can focus on ourselves, we can see there are a lot of things – feelings, thoughts, beliefs, values and behaviors. Moreover, there are so many things we have within us which are not directly coming from our parents, still there can be parental influence on us. Similarly, we can see the shade of ourselves in our children. Sometimes we may feel that we hear our words in our children’s voice. Therefore, our role as parents as well as a person in front of children is very unique, powerful, meaningful, significant and also a sensitive one.

Why it is important to know about parenting

Parenting differs from person to person or from culture to culture. As a parent, we may think , “I am a parent, so I know better what is parenting, what kind of parenting is good for my child. I don’t need to know from others.” Yes, you are right. You are a parent and you know better what is the best for your child. But the fact is that as a human being we cannot know everything. There are a lot of researches related to parenting that can help a parent to communicate better with his/her children. Also, sometime due to lack of knowledge, we cannot treat our children in the way which is best for them.

Styles of parenting

There are different types of parenting styles. Diana Baumrind (1967) has identified three initial parenting styles: authoritative parenting, authoritarian parenting and permissive parenting. Maccoby and Martin (1983) have expanded upon Baumrind’s three original parenting styles. The four parenting styles are defined as authoritarian, permissive, neglectful, and authoritative.

Authoritarian parenting: Authoritarian Parenting, also called strict parenting, is characterized by parents who are demanding but not responsive. The authoritarian parenting style involves parents’ strict rules without the explanation or reasoning behind those rules. Parents punish their children for disobeying the rules and maintain decorum and control over the children by verbal threats or physical punishments. When a child questions the reasons behind a rule, authoritarian parents usually say, “Because I said this.” They are not interested in negotiation and their focus is on obedience.

For example, Mr. Rayan (pseudonym) and Ms. Sara (pseudonym) have a family with two children (25-year-old son and 20-year-old daughter). Apparently, it is a very structured family with love, effort, expenses. But in terms of rules, parents never share the reason. Mr. Rayan decided that his son will take science in his Secondary Higher Education but commerce was the choice of his son. Ms. Sara never disagrees with her husband and never agrees with her children in this kind of situation. Same thing happens with their daughter. In terms of subject selection at the University, Mr. Rayan imposed his choice. In any kind of decision making, all other members of Mr. Rayan’s family have to obey the decision made by Mr. Rayan. They do not have any other choices.

As a result of this parenting style, children become proficient but they also have a low level of self-esteem. They are not at all open to communicate with their parents and sometimes they view their parents as the enemy. Moreover, they become confused about what is right and what is wrong. The children of authoritarian parents may become hostile or aggressive. The most common traits are children becoming liars as they lie to their parents to get saved from their punishments. Studies also show that they may become good liars, as they may grow with condition to lie to avoid punishment. The reason behind these behaviors is because this parenting style does not give any space to the children to share their thoughts and feelings to their parents. Even the children are comparatively less happy.

Permissive parenting: In the permissive parenting style, parents have no rules at all. They are lenient. They accept their children as they are. Permissive parents usually take on more of a friend role than a parent role. They often encourage their children to talk with them about their problems, but they usually do not put much effort to inculcate some positive things into children. They are quite forgiving and they adopt an attitude of ‘it does not matter, children are like this.” Sometimes these parents allow their children to do wrong things. This parenting style makes the children dependent, irresponsible and immature. They are also at a higher risk of health problems like obesity. These children tend to struggle academically. They may exhibit more behavioral problems in professional work as they do not appreciate authority and rules. They often have low self-esteem and may report a lot of sadness.

Uninvolved parenting: Another parenting style is uninvolved parenting. Uninvolved parents basically expect children to raise themselves. They usually do not give much time or energy to meet children’s basic needs. These parents tend to have little knowledge of what their children are doing. They are often neglectful. But sometimes, it is not intentional, such as, a parent with mental health issues or substance abuse problems. They may not be able to care their children’s needs. In some other cases, uninvolved parents are busy with other problems, like job, managing household works, and family crises. In addition, sometimes they do not know about child development. Children may not receive much guidance, nurture, and parental attention from uninvolved parents. They struggle with self-esteem issues. Their academic performance is also not good. They have difficulties in healthy communication and internally they may not be happy.

Authoritative parenting: Authoritative parents are nurturing, supportive and involved with the children. Like authoritarian parents, they use rules, but, they allow for reasonable exceptions to the rules. Moreover, they explain and discuss the rules. They are in favor of using logical explanation and emotional understanding. Authoritative parents sometimes use positive discipline to prevent unhealthy behavior and to reinforce healthy behavior.

Children raised with authoritative parenting style are good at making decisions and evaluating safety risks on their own. They grow up to be responsible and expressive. These children tend to be happy with self, others and the world.

(The writer is Psychosocial Counselor and Lecturer, BRAC University.)