Parenting

Many of you have seen in the news about the child abuse and child neglect cases. Have you ever thought about the fact that these cases may be due to the lack of parenting skills, or the fact that the person had a bad parenting style? Have you ever thought about the fact that there might be different types of parenting styles, or whether parenting was a taught process or if it was something that you learn as you do it? Well in this paper, I will answer some of these questions for you. I am going to define what parenting, tell you about the different styles of parenting, and show you some of the reward and benefits of being a parent according to the sources. By the time you are finished reading this paper, I hope you will have a better understanding of parenting and that I will have answered all questions you may have had.

Parenting can be defined in a couple of different ways. Parenting can be defined as rearing of a child. Rearing means to raise and educate from birth to an adult. You may wonder, what is involved with raising a child? Well there are a lot of different things that can be involved with raising children. A few of those things are; love, nurturing, teaching right from wrong, teaching morals, teaching discipline, and many more things to help make them a better person when they get to adulthood.

Another way parenting can be defined is; the state of being a parent. That to me is pretty self-explanatory. So what all duties do someone as a parent? Well they are to provide physical security. What this means is they keep a child safe from harm and provide clothing and nourishment for the child. This also means that they make sure the child’s health is taken care of. Another duty we have as parents is to provide physical development. This means we are to provide conditions that help a child have a healthy growth. We also need to provide the child with the means to be able to develop physically. Next, we are to provide intellectual, security and development as well as emotional security and development. This means to make sure that a child is mentally and physically not abused and we show them the love and affection they deserve and so desperately need. We give them emotional and intellectual support when they need it. Another duty of a parent is financial support. This means that we make sure we have the means of supporting the child with insurance, medication and whatever else they may need.

Many people have seen a lot of different parents doing things a different way when they are rearing there children. That is due to the fact that there are three different styles of parenting. They are as follows; authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive. We are going to talk a little about each of them.

Authoritative parenting is a type of parenting that is characterized by high expectations, that the child will comply with the rules and directions set by the parent, and the dialogue about the rules and behaviors. This type of parent encourages their child to be independent. Authoritative parents are not usually controlling, therefore they allow the child to explore more freely. They are strict parents though. They do expect and demand that the child be obedient. However when they are punishing the child, they do explain the reason for the punishment to make sure the child understands why they are being punished. They feel that this will help the child to have a higher self-esteem. This can be a good style of parenting; however, the children who live in this parenting style may debate with their parents and will possibly form their own opinions, in order to justify their disobedience. Another thing with authoritative parents they help there children learn to be responsible for themselves and to think about the consequences of their behavior and actions. So basically, they provide clear reasonable expectations for their children and then they give their child an explanation of why they are to behave in a particular manner. When they see their child being good they give them positive reinforcement as well as when they catch them acting up they do the same. They also give the child choices based on their child’s ability.

Permissive parenting is where the parent gives up most control to the child. They make very few if any rules, and when they make rules, they are not usually enforced. This style of parent wants their child to feel free. This style does not set clear boundaries or expectations for their child and their behavior. They seem to except in a warm loving way however, their child behaves. This style of parent seems to give the child as many choices as possible, even when the child is not capable of making good choices. These parents tend to let their child act in any way, good or bad and accept it. They do not tell the child not to act that way they just let them act how they want to. The parent may feel unable to change the behavior or they may just not want to get involved with the argument that may arise from the child. This parenting style would be good for withdrawn children, but would not be for the rebellious or aggressive children. This parenting style sometimes results with the child having an immature behavior and the inability to control impulses. This can also lead to insecure and low achievement in children. They tend to lack a good bit in social responsibility.

Authoritarian parents are the type of parents that believe in structure. They set high standards of behavior for their children, and they require the child to be obedient. These parents always try to be in control of the child. They don’t usually show much warmth and affection to their children. This type of parent is almost always very critical of the child if they did not meet the standard they had set for them. They also tell the child what to do, they try there best to make the child obey, and they do not give their child a choice or an option. Authoritarian parents do not explain why they want their child to do things a certain way. If the child asks why the parent is usually known to say because I said so. They seem to focus on correcting bad behavior, rather than complimenting the good behavior. With the bad behavior they are usually scolded or punished and it is usually rather harshly for not following the rules. The children from this style of parenting usually do not learn to think for themselves. They also do not learn why the parent is requiring certain behaviors. These children have been known to have low self-esteem and rely on the voice of an authority figure more often.

In the following graph. It will show the approximate amount of people in each of the different styles of parenting.

Many have probably wondered about the effects of being a single parent. Is there a difference in the way