Parenting Styles and Stats

Parent

One who gives birth to a child One who nurtures and cares for a child A guardian or protector

Activity

On a sheet of paper please list some GOOD traits of parents

In a second column, list some BAD traits of parents

The choice to be a Parent

Parenting is a full time job Many parents choose to have children for

the many rewards it brings Love New experiences Children bring enthusiasm to life

Responsibilities

How does having a child change a couple’s life?

What areas of their life have to be in order before they should consider having a child?

Physical Needs

Providing food, shelter, clothing and medical care

This may involve taking classes or working extra hours

Meeting physical needs takes time as well Grocery shopping, laundry, doctor’s

appointments

Intellectual Needs

Parents need to help children learn Parent should provide:

Educational tools like toys Challenged to develop intellect Help and tutoring during the school years

Social Needs

Parents teach children to communicate, share, and get along with others

What social etiquette did your parents teach you?

Emotional Needs

Parents guide children in developing healthy emotions

Parents need to teach children that emotions are not a negative thing, but that they can affect decision making

A parent’s love should be constant and UNCONDITIONAL

Parents need to show love openly, so that children understand how to show others that they love them

Values

You learn values from your parents Values are standards that guide your

actions What values have you learned from your

parents?

Self-Esteem

Self esteem is liking yourself and feeling that you are good and worthwhile

Parents teach children to love themselves no matter what, and help them build their self esteem

Parents should make children feel important by treating them as much as possible like they would their peers Not interrupting, asking their opinions and

allowing them to make choices

Self Esteem

Have you ever felt like someone did not treat you the way you wanted to be treated?

Did it affect your self esteem?

Factors to Consider

Before becoming a parent, adults should consider these factors: Are they socially ready? Are they financially ready? Are they in good health? Are they ready for the responsibility?

Guidance

The greatest role a parent will play is a guide for the child

Guidance includes all words and actions that a parent uses that may affect the child’s behavior This could be positive or negative

Discipline

Discipline includes all methods parent use to teach acceptable behavior

The main concern of discipline is teaching Discipline should teach the child self

control, teaching limits, and enforcing the limits

Punishment

Punishment differs from discipline in one major way:

Punishment is a consequence for unwanted behavior that isn’t motivated by teaching, but by fear, humiliation, or power

Punishment is not an effective way to parent because it lacks the key factor in guiding children: It does not teach them to learn self control or

make their own choices

Example

A Child is told many times to keep their glass away from the edge of the table. The child continues to put their glass on the edge and knocks it over with their arm.

To discipline this action, a parent could tell the child they must clean it up themselves so that they learn that their choice led to them having to clean it up

To punish this action, the parent might pull the child out of the chair and spank them or tell them they must leave the table and cannot have more dinner.

Example

A teenage that is able to drive takes their mom’s car without permission and gets into a minor fender bender.

To discipline this action, a parent might have the teenage pay for part or all of the repairs by getting a job or doing chores around the house so that they learn that their action had a financial consequence

To punish this action, a parent might make the teenager stand on the street with an embarrassing sign

Parenting Styles

There are three types of parenting styles These styles are defined by the type of

guidance given They are:

Authoritarian Authoritative Permissive

Authoritarian

Authoritarian parenting is like a government run by a dictator- there is a person in charge and everyone else has to fall in line without asking questions

Authoritarian parents are extremely strict and unyielding

They will not allow for the children to have an opinion or say in how they will be raised

Example

A child tends to be a just a little messy. An Authoritarian parent would demand that the child’s room look a certain way with no exceptions. They would not allow personalization that fell outside of their preferences. If the parent came in to a messy room, they would yell and empty out all of the drawers and make the child refold everything until it was perfect.

Disadvantages

The disadvantage to Authoritarian parenting is that usually punishment, not discipline, is used

Children grow up being forced to everything according to their parent’s wishes and do not learn to express themselves or have healthy emotions

The parents will use fear and humiliation to keep children in line

Children will learn that they don’t have the right to their own opinion

Advantages

There are no real advantages since the children will only comply out of fear or threat of humiliation or punishment

Authoritative

Authoritative parents are similar to a government run by a democracy

Everyone has a say and even though some members of the family have more power than others, everyone has an opinion and is open to speaking it

Authoritative parents use discipline to teach and guide

Example

A teenager is getting older and thinks that their curfew is too early. They would be able to talk to their parents about it, and would not be punished for wanted to change the rules. The parents would consider and come to a decision that takes the teenagers opinion into account.

Advantages

Advantages of Authoritative parenting include: The child learns self esteem from having a

voice There is still structure and guidance since the

parents have the final say Discipline is used instead of punishment Children learn early on how to resolve conflict

effectively

Disadvantages

None

Permissive Parenting

Permissive parenting is similar to anarchy There is no structure, no rules, and very

little guidance from parents Parents appear more like friends than

adults in charge Children will make all of their own decisions

and parents will not argue with it

Example

Teenager wants to get her nose pierced even though it’s against school rules. The parent would allow the piercing and then when the teenager got in trouble at school, the parent would talk to the teenager about how unfair it all is and attempt to be their friend instead of teaching them how to follow rules.

Disadvantages

Children thrive from structure, and will feel insecure in this environment

Children are not capable of making adult decisions and will suffer more natural consequences

When the parent attempts to be a friend, they are not there when the child needs actual guidance

Children may put themselves into dangerous situations

Advantages

Children will have some sense of their own importance, although it will be skewed due to no structure

Activity

Which parenting style would you use and why?