Parenting

‘Parenting’ may be defined as purposive activities aimed at ensuring the survival and
development of children. It derives from the Latin verb ‘parere’ ‘to bring forth, develop or
educate’. The word ‘parenting’, from its root, is more concerned with the activity of developing
and educating than who does it. The connotation of the word is, the parenting is a positive,
nurturing activity. Thus, parenting is an activity that normally involves the children, parents and
other family members in lifelong interaction (Clarke & Stewart, 2006). Child rearing is not a
technical term with precise significance. It refers generally to all the interactions between parents
and their children. These interactions include the parental interest, expression of attitudes, values,
and beliefs as well as their care and training behavior. Child rearing is a continuous process.
Each moment of a child’s life that he spends in contact with his parents has some effect on both
of his present behavior and his potentialities for future action (Clarke & Stewart, 2006).

The most essential role in a child’s development is played by their primary caregivers,
usually the parents. While families provide a structured environment in which a child lives, the
parents serve as role models and influence their development, attitudes and values. Hence,
parenthood is a big responsibility. A parent must strive to be a guide, mentor, caretaker, friend,
philosopher, and a role model, to his or her child. It is because the most central and enduring
influence on children’s lives comes from families and parents and the ways they adopt to
discipline and nurture them.

Parenting styles

The parent role is partially an individual creation as people conceptualize parenting based on
their own prior experiences in a parent-child relationship, their thoughts and feelings about being
a parent, and their child rearing expertise and understanding. But while part of the role is
individually thought about, shaped, and refined, other aspects are externally imposed, like legal
requirements, in socially well-developed countries, regarding children's protection and welfare.

Researches done have also shown that specific parenting practices are less important in
predicting child well being than is the broad pattern of parenting. Diana Baumrind’s parenting
style is widely used across to define and understand parenting practices. The construct of
parenting style is used to capture normal variations in parents attempts to control and socialize
their children (Baumrind, 1991). There have been four types of parenting style suggested by
Baumrind : authoritative, authoritarian , permissive and neglectful.

Authoritative parenting style is high on responsiveness and demandingness. These

parents have high expectations for achievement and maturity but they are warm and responsive.
They set rules and enforce boundaries by having open discussion and reasoning. They are
affectionate and supportive. Children of authoritative parents are happy and content, more
independent, have higher academic success, good self-esteem, better mental health and less
violent tendencies.

Authoritarian parenting style is high on demandingness and low on responsiveness.

These parents use stern discipline and often employ punishment to control children’s behavior.
They are unresponsive to their children’s needs and are generally not nurturing. Children tend to
have unhappy disposition, insecurities, low self-esteem, behavioral problems, poor academic
performance and more prone to mental issues.

Permissive parenting (indulgent) is high on responsiveness and low on demandingness.

These parents set very few rules and boundaries and they are reluctant to enforce rules. They are
warm and indulgent and do not like to disappoint their children. Children under this parenting
style have worse self-control, egocentric tendencies, low discipline, problems in relationships
and social interaction.

Neglectful parenting (uninvolved) is low on both responsiveness and demandingness.

They are different to their children’s needs and uninvolved in their lives. They don’t set firm
boundaries or high standards. Children brought up under this parenting style tend to be more
impulsive, poor emotional balance, more delinquency and addiction problems, more metal
issues like suicidal behavior in adolescents.

Parenting and cultural context

Out of these four major parenting styles, authoritative has wider acceptance across
cultures. As mentioned in a study that Causian middle-class parenting is characterized by an
authoritative style. It is generally agreed that these children are taught to love and respect each
other, value individual differences (Julian, Mackenry, & Mackelvy, 1994). The major
characteristics in African-American families fall in line with Baumrinds’ authoritative parenting
role such as respect for authority figures, strong work ethics, balance between rights of
individuals and needs and requirement of the group, abilities and talents (Julian, Mackenry, &
Mackelvy, 1994). In Mexican-American families some descriptions include parents being
primarily permissive, others as authoritarian and some as nurturant and affectionate within
patriarchial authoritarian family structure.

Parenting in Indian culture

Every culture is characterized, and distinguished from other cultures, by deeply rooted
and widely acknowledged ideas about how one needs to feel, think, and act as a functioning
member of the culture. Cross-cultural study affirms that groups of people possess different
beliefs and engage in different behaviors that may be normative in their culture but are not
necessarily normative in another culture.

Social researches have suggested that India’s cultural heritage has its base in the rich
values of respect for elders, parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts and strong family ties. The
strong kinship networks and extended families continue to prevail, though there is an increasing
trend towards nuclear families. A collectivist culture that believes in interdependence and
highlights family relationships and obligations is still the norm. In India, the current trend is that
the parents are investing more time, energy and money in their children’s educational and
occupational choices to make a secure future for their children. Hence, the kind of parenting
practices involve high level of involvement as opposed to individualist cultures.
Parenting practices

Parenting practices around the world share three major goals: ensuring children’s health
and safety, preparing children for life as productive adults and transmitting cultural values.
Parenting practices are not only affected by their own developmental experiences, changes, and
needs, but also by their changing, growing, developing child. For example, children need
continuous care as infants, but as they grow their parental needs change. Thus, parents of infants
spend a good deal of time tending to their children by feeding, diapering, cuddling, and holding.
As infants become toddlers and then preschoolers, their developmental needs change and parents
increasingly focus their efforts on encouraging, guiding, and supervising child exploration.
Parental awareness of their child's developmental changes and corresponding needs, not to
mention each child's unique characteristics, is tempered by the on going yet evolving parent-
child relationship.

Child rearing practice for adolescents

Adolescence is a critical phase of life where an individual undergoes many changes. It is

a period of transition when the individual changes physically and psychologically from a child to
an adult. It is a built-in, necessary transition period for ego development. There are various
factors like family structure, transition in emotionality, transition in socialization, the social
status, changed body, levels of aspiration, their achievements, religious beliefs that play a
significant role in adolescent development. Among the various family factors that might
influence child and adolescent development, parenting styles have been recognized as important.

There are lot of variations being observed in the adolescents and their parents’ behavior.
One of the research done by Roberts delineated six environmental processes that work to shape
the development of personality through adolescence into adulthood; learning processes,
environmental elicitation, environment construal, social and temporal comparisons,
environmental selection, and environmental manipulation (Roberts, 2000). Theoretically, all of
these processes could play a part in the emerging relationship between adolescent personality
traits and relationships with parents. There is little empirical evidence for the operation of some
(e.g. social comparisons, environmental selection and manipulation) but greater support for the
ways in which personality traits may shape the elicitation and construal of behavior from others
(Shiner, 2003).

Particularly as children mature into adolescence, individual differences in personality

evoke different responses from parents and selection of different types of frequencies of
interactions with parents. It is most likely this process of person-environment transaction that
contributes to the increasing stability and consistency of personality during
adolescence (Roberts, 2000). Although school-age children often press for greater
independence, they also know how much they need their parents’ support. In one study, fifth and
sixth graders described parents as the most influential people in their lives, often turning to them
for affection, advice, enhancement of self-worth, and assistance with everyday
problems.Whereas, during adolescence, striving for autonomy—a sense of oneself as a separate,
self-governing individual—becomes a salient task (Buhmaster, 1992). Cognitive development
also paves the way for autonomy: Gradually, adolescents solve problems and make decisions
more effectively. And an improved ability to reason about social relationships leads adolescents
to de- idealize their parents, viewing them as “just people.” Consequently, they no longer bend as
easily to parental authority as they did when younger.

This finding is also validated by the study on psycho-social consequences of parenting.

Authoritarian parenting which allow the child to explore more freely, thus having them make
their own decisions based upon their own reasoning is the most effective one and thus, is
considered to be a case of good parenting. It is associated with increased independence, self-
confidence, self-efficacy, competent social skills, critical thinking skills, effective emotion
regulation and increased academic competence, among their children, as the child has freedom to
explore who they are in an individualistic stance with no external factor directing them what they
have to be, at the same time not being too involved or too uninvolved that the child feels caged
or not important at all (Mahapatra & Batul., 2016).

Correlates of parenting styles

Traditional theories of child development emphasize the role of the primary caregiver,
especially during the child’s first year of life, in establishing the basis for the infant to develop
healthy attachments, a sense of self, and a sense of self-efficacy (Bowlby, 1969). Building on
social learning theory, the development of self-efficacy, defined as “judgments of how well one
can execute courses of action required to deal with prospective situations,” is viewed as central
to human agency, self-regulation, and a child’s choice of activities and environments (Bandura,
1982). The quality of parenting continues to play a key role throughout the child’s development,
interacting with the child characteristics and behavior, and the family’s sociocultural context.
(citation)
In a recent study by M.J.Miller (2008) there was a positive correlation found between the
frequency of interaction between parents and their children and the social competence among
children which implies that parents play a pivotal role in creating a self-identity and self-image
of their children, and also when parents are more involved in the growing up process of their
children, when parents spend some quality time in interacting with their children more as friends
and less as authoritative figures, children get a positive environment to grow and realize their
potential to the fullest.
This finding is also validated by the study by (Mahapatra & Batul, 2016) on psychosocial
consequences of parenting authoritative parenting which allow the child to explore more freely,
thus having them make their own decisions based upon their own reasoning is the most effective
one and thus, is considered to be a case of good parenting. It is associated with increased
independence, self-confidence, self-efficacy, competent social skills, critical thinking skills,
effective emotion regulation and increased academic competence, among their children, as the
child has freedom to explore who they are in an individualistic stance with no external factor
directing them what they have to be, at the same time not being too involved or too uninvolved
that the child feels caged or not important at all.