Posted: October 6, 2016
Parents want the best for their children, and there are several ways they can help their child be successful in life.
One way is to build family relationships with communication. Communication strengthens the bonds between adult and child. It builds trust, a strong cornerstone for family relationships. Good communication creates a home full of comfort and reassurance and shared love.
In addition to the strength of good communication, parenting style makes a huge difference for every child's success.
There are four main types of parenting styles: authoritarian, permissive, indifferent, and authoritative.
The authoritarian parenting style tends to relate to aggression, poor academic performance, and lower degrees of self-reliance and social competence compared to children raised in authoritative environments (Steinberg, Dornbusch, and Brown 1992).
Permissive parenting relates to low cognitive ability and emotional empathy development within the child (Aunola, Stattin, and Nurmi 2000).
Indifferent parenting produces children who are likely to be impulsive, to show high levels of both externalizing problems (e.g., aggressiveness) and internalizing problems (e.g., depression), and to have low self-esteem.
Authoritative parents offer positive support and high expectations, along with providing children a lot of opportunities that help predict independence, self-confidence, motivation, critical thinking skills, and self-regulation (Hess and McDevitt 1984; Ginsburg and Bronstein 1993).
What parenting style are you? If you want the best outcomes for your children you may want to include these techniques:
- Be a coach, one who guides and encourages your child to reach his or her true potential. Do this by providing goals and limits. These goals and limits need to be age appropriate, and match the ability and interest of the child.
- Celebrate your child's accomplishments, and make time to play and have fun together. This builds on the time to communicate, and to reflect on things going on in everyone's life.
- Agree on consistent rules that promote your children's healthy development, helps them learn self-discipline, and lets them develop a healthy respect for themselves and others.
It's easy. Talk, listen, coach, and be consistent to prepare your children for a successful life.
References
Aunola, K., H. Stattin, and J-E. Nurmi. 2000. "Parenting Styles and Adolescents' Achievement Strategies." Journal of Adolescence 23:205-222.
Besharat, Mohammad A., Koorish Azizi, and Hamid Poursharifi. 2011. "The Relationship Between Parenting Styles and Children's Academic Achievement in a Sample of Iranian Families." Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 15:1280-1283.
Conlin, Jennifer. 2013. The Perfect Parents Handbook. St. Martin's Griffin.
Chapman, Gary, and Ross Campbell. 2010. The 5 Love Languages of Children. Moody Publishers.
Chapman, Gary, and Ross Campbell. 2010. The 5 Love Languages of Teenagers. Moody Publishers.
Ginsburg, G. S., and P. Bronstein. 1993. "Family Factors Related to Children's Intrinsic/Extrinsic Motivational Orientation and Academic Performance." Child Development 64:1461-1474.
Hess, R.D., and T.M. McDevitt. 1984. "Some Cognitive Consequences of Maternal Intervention Techniques: A Longitudinal Study." Child Development 55:2017-2030.
Nyarko, Kingsley. 2011. "The Influence of Authoritative Parenting Style on Adolescents' Academic Achievement." American Journal of Social and Management Sciences 2(3):278-282.
Steinberg, L., S.M. Dornbusch, and B.B. Brown. 1992. "Ethnic Differences in Adolescent Achievement: An Ecological Perspective." American Psychology 46(6):723-729.
