Respected Sir,

ROLE OF PARENTING IN SHAPING THE BEHAVIOR OF CHILDREN

Parenting plays a crucial role in the emotional and behavioral development of children. There are four types of parenting styles according to Baumrind such as authoritarian, authoritative, permissive, and uninvolved/neglectful parenting.[1-3] Parenting style is characterized by the way parents discipline and control their children.[3] Children can thrive in any type of parenting style, but it has been evident that a child reared in a single-parent family does less well than those reared in a two parents’ family environment.[1] Parents differ in their approach while guiding and interacting with children, which play a significant role in establishing a child’s morals, conduct, and principles.[1] Parenting factors such as everyday interactions with the child, interpersonal conflicts, and adverse childhood experiences like abuse may act as risk factors for the development of mental disorders among children.[4,5]

PARENTING STYLES

Different parenting styles signify the ways by which parents raise their children. Each parent will exhibit characteristics of any one of the parenting styles. However, a parent may also exhibit characteristics of other parenting styles as well. Parenting style may also vary according to the situation.[1] [Table 1] below highlights important aspects of different parenting styles.[1,2,6-15]

Table 1:: Important aspects of different types of parenting styles.

Types of parenting style Parental characteristics Behavioral patterns in children Authoritarian parenting • Parents have a one-way communicative mode.[1]
• Parents form strict rules that children have to obey, but the rules are not usually elucidated to the children.[1]
• No chance for children to engage in negotiation or conciliation.[1]
• Mistakes from children are usually followed by punishment from parents.[1]
• These parents tend to have high expectations for their children to fulfill.[1]
• These parents commonly express negative emotions toward their children and are known as “cold and firm” by nature.[6] • Children tend to mostly well behave in a room to avoid the consequences secondary to any misbehavior from their side.[1]
• Children tend to cling to strict orders from their authoritarian parents.[1]
• Children can exhibit a wide array of psychological characteristics such as uncontrolled and higher aggression levels, social ineptness, low self-esteem, difficulty in decision-making, shyness, and poor psychological maturity and flexibility.[1,2,7,8]
• Harsh parental restrictions and punitive parenting may lead to rebellious behavior in children against their parents.[1]
• These children tend to have unhealthy eating behavior and higher screen time.[9,10]
• These children experience less homesickness.[11] Authoritative parenting • These parents form nurturing and close relationships with their children.[1]
• Parents have principles for expectations from children.[1]
• Disciplinary ways are used in place of punitive ways if a child commits any mistake.[1]
• There exists a healthy and frequent type of communication with children about the expectations and goals which require effort and patience on both sides.[1]
• These parents tend to express positive emotions toward their children and are known as “warm yet firm” by nature.[6]
• These parents boost independent behavior in their children.[1] • Due to healthy communication with their parents, children can give input about goals and expectations.[1]
• Children tend to be responsible, and confident and can self-regulate.[1]
• Children can regulate their negative emotions successfully resulting in preferable social behavior and positive impact on their emotional health.[1]
• Due to parental independence, these children tend to have good self-belief that they can achieve their goals by themselves.[1]
• These children tend to have higher self-esteem levels with greater performance in school and higher academic achievements.[12]
• Children tend to have healthy eating habits and healthy body weight.[9]
• These children tend to have more support from their parents for physical activity.[10]
• These children experience more homesickness.[11] Permissive parenting • Like authoritative parents, these parents are also nurturing and warm, but they have either no or negligible expectations from their children.[1]
• It is also called an “Indulgent parenting style” and parents are not able to commonly deny the demands of their children even if the demands are unreasonable.[13]
• These parents usually act more like peers for their children than as parents per se.[1]
• Parents exhibit lesser demandingness and higher responsiveness toward their children.[13]
• The type of communication is open in which parents let their children work out things by themselves.[1]
• These parents are highly reactive toward the emotional needs of their children, but they fail to establish boundaries or limits.[13]
• These parents tend to be lenient and do not like authority or control over their children.[13]
• These parents do not regularly impose or execute the rules or standards of behavior for their children and let their children take significant decisions without properly guiding them.[13] • Negligible level of parental expectations leads to reduced chances of disciplinary behavior from children.[1]
• Restricted parental rules or expectations put children to have detrimental eating behavior,[9]which may increase the risk of obesity and other lifestyle diseases.[13]
• Such children tend to exhibit greater screen time by excessively watching TV and by playing computer or video games.[10]
• These children tend to show impulsiveness and aggressiveness in their behavior, poorer academic achievements, not able to control their emotions, increased risk of delinquent behavior, substance including alcohol abuse, poorer empathy, and antisocial behavior.[13]
• These children experience more homesickness.[11] Uninvolved parenting • These parents show the lowest demandingness and responsiveness. In other words, these parents are neither demanding nor responsive toward the needs of their children.[14]
• These parents tend to exhibit limited communication with their children.[1]
• It is considered the least favorable type of parenting style and is also known as “Indifferent parenting” or “Neglectful parenting.”[14]
• These parents are not involved in the life of their children, they are not concerned about the needs of their children, and they do not form disciplinary boundaries regarding the behavior of their children.[14]
• Behavior of these parents lack affection toward their children and fail to show enthusiasm for their children’s academic activities or performance.[14]
• These parents generally belong to pathological families with a childhood history of facing neglectful parents by themselves.[14]
• These parents often tend to have psychological issues such as alcohol dependence or depression.[14] • These children tend to have excessive freedom as parents are not involved in their lives.[1]
• These children tend to have poor scholastic performance, poor social skills, lower self-esteem, impulsive behavior, poor coping mechanisms, impaired ability to control their behavior, difficulty in controlling emotions, increase risk for borderline personality disorder, higher risk of depression and substance dependence, higher risk of becoming physically abusive, and higher risk of becoming neglectful or uninvolved parents to their next generation.[14,15]
• These children experience less homesickness.[11] CONCLUSION

The type of parenting style used by the parents significantly shapes the future development and behavior of their children. Authoritative parenting style is favorable whereas uninvolved or neglectful parenting style is the least favorable parenting style with an increased risk of behavioral problems among the children in the future.

Limitation

We have not explored the relationship between various parenting styles and coping strategies used by the children in this article.