News Events Publications Impact case studies Evidence briefings. Parenting style influences child development and social mobility January Children from higher income groups have higher cognitive assessments and fewer behavioural problems.
Changes in parenting behaviours could help close the inequality gap in terms of child development. For example, if, as one study indicates, half or all of the five-year-old children who were read to less than daily were instead read to on a daily basis there would be corresponding ten per cent and 20 per cent reductions in the proportion of five-year-olds with socio-emotional difficulties.
The ideal scenario for children, both boys and girls, is where both parents live in the home and both are in paid employment. Parenting is an important mediator in redressing the effects of poverty and disadvantage, but parenting quality is not a primary cause of poverty in the UK nor will better parenting skills remove the disadvantages of poverty. They are nontraditional and lenient, do not require mature behavior, allow considerable self-regulation, and avoid confrontation.
In addition to the three major styles introduced by Baumrind, psychologists Eleanor Maccoby and John Martin proposed a fourth style: uninvolved or neglectful parenting.
An uninvolved parenting style is characterized by few demands, low responsiveness, and very little communication. While these parents fulfill the child's basic needs, they are generally detached from their child's life. They might make sure that their kids are fed and have shelter, but offer little to nothing in the way of guidance, structure, rules, or even support.
In extreme cases, these parents may even reject or neglect the needs of their children. What effect do these parenting styles have on child development outcomes? In addition to Baumrind's initial study of preschool children, researchers have conducted a a number of studies about the impact of parenting styles on children. Because authoritative parents are more likely to be viewed as reasonable, fair, and just, their children are more likely to comply with their parents' requests. Also, because these parents provide rules as well as explanations for these rules, children are much more likely to internalize these lessons.
Rather than simply following the rules because they fear punishment as they might with authoritarian parents , the children of authoritative parents are able to see why the rules exist, understand that they are fair and acceptable, and strive to follow these rules to meet their own internalized sense of what is right and wrong.
The parenting styles of individual parents also combine to create a unique blend in each family. For example, the mother may display an authoritative style while the father favors a more permissive approach. This can sometimes lead to mixed signals. In order to create a cohesive approach to parenting, it is essential that parents learn to cooperate and combinetheir unique parenting styles.
Links between parenting styles and behavior are based on correlational research , which is helpful for finding relationships between variables but cannot establish definitive cause-and-effect relationships.
While there is evidence that a particular parenting style is linked to a certain pattern of behavior, other important variables such as a child's temperament can also play a major role. There is also some evidence that a child's behavior can impact parenting styles.
One study published in found that the parents of children who exhibited difficult behavior began to exhibit less parental control over time. Such results suggest that kids might misbehave not because their parents were too permissive, but because the parents of difficult or aggressive children gave up on trying to control their kids.
The researchers have also noted that the correlations between parenting styles and behaviors are sometimes weak. Cultural factors also play an important role in parenting styles and child outcomes.
Parenting styles are associated with different child outcomes, and the authoritative style is generally linked to positive behaviors such as strong self-esteem and self-competence. However, other important factors including culture, children's temperament, children's perceptions of parental treatment, and social influences also play an important role in children's behavior.
Ever wonder what your personality type means? Sign up to find out more in our Healthy Mind newsletter. Baumrind D. Child care practices anteceding three patterns of preschool behavior. Genet Psychol Monogr. Power TG. Parenting dimensions and styles: a brief history and recommendations for future research. Child Obes. Does problem behavior elicit poor parenting? J Adolesc Res. Bernstein DA. Essentials of Psychology. Researchers have noted that what is seen to be a reasonable level of control varies as a function of sociocultural context.
Research on more specific cognitions also highlights the importance of parent thinking on child outcomes. As an example, parents look for reasons why both they and their children act the way the do.
These attributions can make parenting more efficient when they are accurate. These negative feelings distract parents from the task of parenting, and make it more difficult for them to react appropriately and effectively to the challenges of socialization. For example, Bugental and colleagues have studied mothers who believe their children have more power than they do in situations where events are not going well.
They send confusing messages to their children, with the result that children stop paying attention to them as well as showing a decrease in cognitive ability. Similarly, mothers of infants who are low in self-efficacy, that is, do not believe they can parent effectively, give up on parenting when the task is challenging and become depressed. They are cold and disengaged in interactions with their babies. Other aspects of parent thinking include the ability to take the perspective of the child.
There has been some investigation of how mothers and fathers differ in their parental cognitions and parenting style: Mothers report higher endorsement of progressive parenting attitudes, encouraging their children to think and verbalize their own ideas and opinions, whereas fathers endorse a more authoritarian approach.
The study of parent cognitions, beliefs, thoughts, and feelings can expand our knowledge of child development. Child-rearing cognitions influence parents to act either positively or negatively towards their children. These beliefs have been considered good predictors of parenting behaviour because they indicate the emotional climate in which children and parents operate and the health of the relationship.
When the thoughts are benign, they direct positive actions. When the thoughts are accurate they will usually lead to positive actions. When they are distorted and distressing, however, they distract parents from the task at hand as well as leading to negative emotions and attributions that ultimately impair effective parenting. But problems can also arise when parents engage in maladaptive thinking. Mothers at a higher risk of child abuse, for example, are more likely to attribute negative traits to children who demonstrate ambiguous behaviour, and see this behaviour as intentional.
They found that mothers who participated in the program showed improvement in parenting cognitions, diminished levels of harsh parenting, and greater emotional availability.
In turn, children, two years after their mothers participated in the program, displayed lower levels of aggressive behaviour as well as better cognitive skills than those whose mothers had not undergone such cognitive retraining. Grusec JE, Danyliuk T. Updated: December Introduction Why do parents behave the way they do when raising children? Subject Child-rearing attitudes are cognitions that predispose an individual to act either positively or negatively toward a child.
Problems The influence of attitudes on parenting behaviours has been a favourite topic of investigation, with research suggesting that linkages are generally of a modest nature. Research Context The study of parent attitudes, belief systems, and thinking has taken place along with changing conceptions of child-rearing. Key Research Questions Which parental attitudes result in the best child outcomes? Recent Research Results A large body of research on attitudes indicates that parental warmth together with reasonable levels of control combine to produce positive child outcomes.
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