Parenting has acquired a lot of importance in recent years. Good parenting, various parenting styles, child care, teenage support systems, counseling for kids, and therapies for various issues of children have all evolved in recent years.
Every parent wants a balanced, well-adjusted, socially responsible child. Earlier, parents rarely cared for anything but the provision of food clothing, and shelter. Later, parents started brooding over the health concerns like vaccinations and even proper schooling.
But today’s parent takes an active interest in the emotional and social health of the child along with the physical and mental health. The parents have to juggle their careers and raising their kids. The overload of information has added more to the dilemma of raising kids appropriately. Besides this, we belong to the yes-yes generation, where anything refused by the child can lead to complexities.
Active parenting requires a lot of effort. Parenting in today’s world is challenging. Uncertain environments, climatic conditions, pandemics, and rising technological advances add to these challenges. A parent raises his child based on his experiences as a child, his education level, the highs and lows faced by him, his culture, and the way he was raised. Broadly speaking, four major styles of parenting are adopted by the majority of the population. 1] AUTHORITARIAN PARENTING-
As the name suggests, this parent is the ‘Boss’. No explanations, no negotiations, and no arguments are given by the parent. Stringent rules are laid and the violation has serious punishments. This kind of parenting applies well till seven years of age when habits need to be inculcated, good mannerisms need to be imbibed in the child and the most important life skill which is discipline needs to be taught to the child. This style hardly works when the child crosses 9 years of age since he starts understanding a lot of things and a lot of questions crops up in his mind. If continuing with the same style, the child may become a rebel or resort to illegitimate activities. He may also tend to suffer from confusion, over-dependability, None or low decision-making skills as everything is pre-decided by the parent. AUTHORITATIVE PARENTING-
As per research, this style is said to be one of the most appropriate and applicable to all ages. Parents give the freedom of choice to their kids. They learn life skills on a trial-and-error basis with the support of their parents at every stage of growth. All the actions are based on proper explanations, pieces of evidence, and experience. These kids have a high level of confidence and a high sense of self-worth. Rules are made and implemented, in consultation with the kids, so as to ensure the success of their implementation. Punishments are not gravely designed. This molds them into confident, super-skilled, all-rounded individuals. UNINVOLVED PARENTING-
This kind of parenting is mostly seen in either very affluent, rich families or very poor families. In both scenarios, the parent hardly plays any role in raising of the child. The child is raised by nannies, teachers, therapists, and so on. In the case of poor families, the kids learn skills only through interaction with their counterparts which becomes quite a risk. The parent here only acts as a provider and a protector. No other role is played by the parent. He just fulfills the needs of the child. Thus these kinds of kids grow into individuals who harbor a lot of resentment in them leading to a low sense of worth, no sense of belonging and security, low confidence, and low self-esteem if they have negative people around them, which is quite common for kids from deprived families. Their upbringing is totally on the basis of their interaction with others. If they are surrounded by good people, they may pick up good things and make progress in their life. It could be truly said that ‘These are god’s or devil’s children’ PERMISSIVE PARENTING-
In this kind of parenting, parents are quite flexible in the rules they make. They believe that kids will become whatever is in their destiny. They don’t take much effort into the upbringing of the child. It may sound similar to uninvolved parenting but it’s different in a way that parents do play an active role in this kind of parenting, but there’s a lot of flexibility in the rules. They may change the rules as per the situation. They are not at all stringent followers of rules. Kids can manipulate them easily, as per their interests. Such kids may have poor ethics, poor decision-making skills, poor values, no consistency in discipline, and sometimes no mannerisms too. Such kids are confused about rules, ethics, manners, values, and morals. Recent developments show that some new parenting styles have evolved, out of which some of the major styles are-
HELICOPTER PARENTING-
These parents pay extremely close attention to their kids’ studies and extracurricular activities. These parents are always anxious to protect their kids from disappointments. They are hell-bent to make them succeed in all areas. Helicopter parents hover over their children and show high involvement in their lives. Since these kids are hardly exposed to challenges, they show over-dependability, low self-confidence, and resultantly low self-esteem. Their communication skills and social skills are also totally impaired. LAWNMOWER PARENTING- These parents are a step further than the helicopter parents. They tend to clear or mow away or remove any problems that may arise in their child’s life. They prevent any problems that may occur in their child’s life. Thus the child is overly protected and hardly learns any interactive or social skills They seem to hardly show any confidence, or self-esteem as they are never allowed to solve any issues in their life. These parents even do the homework for their children, complete their challenging projects and prohibit them from doing any challenging task, thus causing a lot of impairment issues mentally, emotionally, and physically.
There are a few other terms coined, related to specific styles of parenting like the DRAGON PARENTS who breathes fire in the child’s way to burn away any problems. Then there are ELEPHANT PARENTS who pay close attention to the emotional needs of the child, nurturing the child closely with less attention on the other aspects like physical fitness, academic development etc. Then there are the DOLPHIN PARENTS who strive to give a balanced upbringing to their child. It is similar to the authoritative parenting style where the rules are firm and flexible. Life lessons are taught through demonstrations. Collaboration in important tasks enables the child to get hands in training in different areas of life. Thus dolphin parent is quite a good style of parenting.
A new term has been coined by Dr.Kenneth Ginsberg in his book ‘Raising kids to thrive’ which is called ‘LIGHTHOUSE PARENTING’. These parents watch over their kids from afar like a torch or a lighthouse. They are given all the liberty to follow their desires, throwing a flashlight of guidance to them, thus enabling them to find their own paths to success and learning. The lighthouse parents give unconditional love to their kids, they are allowed to fail and learn lessons from failures. These kids are more likely to achieve their academic potential, be emotionally secure and choose safer behaviors, follow rules, are thoughtful, and can live a balanced, happy, secure life. This parenting style is applicable to all age groups.
Each parenting style is a reflection of how the parent was raised when he was a kid. I would suggest, parents, take parenting lessons, get equipped, heal their emotional traumas, and then go for childbearing. Since we are raising future generations, it’s a huge responsibility to give a balanced, all-rounded individual to our society and the country as a whole who would in turn make our country prosperous, developed, and progressive.
Wishing everyone ‘A VERY HAPPY PARENTING!