Essay On Parenting Styles

Distinctive parenting styles in preschool children

The minute a child is conceived, parents' lives inevitably change. Particularly the moment the child is born. From the very beginning parents need to make decisions, if its bottle or breast feeding; work or stay at home; nanny or daycare. As the child grows older the decisions don’t stop there they just change. Child-rearing isn’t only a collection of skills and rules; it's the person you’re raised to become, your family culture, and how you transmit the most personal aspects of your values to your child. There are four major parenting styles: permissive, authoritarian, authoritative, and uninvolved. Of these four identified styles, child development experts have found that the authoritative parent is the most successful in raising children who are both academically strong and emotionally stable. Each of these parenting styles reflects diverse occurring patterns of parental values, practices, and behaviors and a distinct balance of responsiveness and demandingness. The fact is most parents will show characteristics of several styles, but over time one style generally prevails.

An important point to consider is deciding which parenting style to use for the child’s development. It is essential for one as a parent to consider the outcomes of each method. Subject 1, the first set of parents I conversed with, are a mother and father of two preschool children aged three and four years old. Not only do they share the same cultural background, but they had similar parenting styles growing up. In the case of Subject 1, both parents agreed to use the same parenting style. From the information I gathered, Subject’s 1 child rearing approach is that of the authoritative style. Authoritativ...

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... to mention the guidance to help the child build eating habits that will lead him toward a healthy adulthood. Always remember that parenting is an interactive situation and take in mind that children also have styles, or temperaments which can mesh with their parent’s styles. Parents should keep in mind that by encouraging their children to work with them on generating solutions to problems, and making their child aware that their opinions are respected, but remain firm in their decisions and can further child development and social mobility. As Professor Ermisch pointed out, “we know that early cognitive development is strongly associated with the child’s educational and economic achievements as an adult, better parenting in early childhood, in terms of educational activities and a more structured parenting style, contributes to the child’s lifetime success( ).”