Contents
“Without discipline, he will grow up loose.” “You just need to give him freedom – and he himself will understand how to do it right.” How to find a balance between demanding and responsive? And what threaten extremes in education?
What does the ideal parenting formula look like? Of course, this question doesn’t make sense. For one of the parents, it is important that the child becomes a successful and respected person. Others want their son or daughter just to be happy. But many agree that for happiness and success, the child needs to be independent. Psychologist Diana Baumrind, fifty years ago, formulated two main qualities on which family upbringing is built. These qualities are responsiveness and exactingness. A different combination of these qualities gives rise to different styles of education. But only one of them helps to develop a healthy sense of responsibility in a child without suppressing his personality.
Authoritarian style
Authoritarian parents place a lot of emphasis on rules and control. They have a clear idea of right and wrong, acceptable and unacceptable, useful and harmful. They believe that obedience to strict requirements is necessary to protect the child from mistakes and harmful influences. If a child behaves in a way that is not “as it should be”, he should be “taught a lesson”. Authoritarian parents are confident in the effectiveness of punishments, and concessions are considered a sign of weakness: “Give him free rein, he will sit on your neck and hang your legs.”
This parenting style combines high demands with low responsiveness. Psychologists believe that children of authoritarian parents often grow up executive and hardworking, but at the same time have low self-esteem and rarely show initiative. Doubting what to do and what to think, such children will seek guidance from authority (the ringleaders in the company, the boss).
Indulgent style
Indulgent parents are attentive to the wishes of the child and are always ready to meet him halfway. They consider prohibitions and punishments to be obsolete methods of education. Unlike adherents of the authoritarian style, they believe in the natural consciousness of the child. They try their best to avoid excessive pressure on the pretext that it is inhumane and kills creativity.
Often indulgent parents try to compensate for the lack of care they themselves experienced in childhood. For example, a man remembers how hard and cold his father was, and thinks: “I will behave differently with my son.” Such parents try to break the barrier between themselves and the child, to show him: we are not just dull “ancestors”, we are your friends.
This parenting style combines low demands and high responsiveness. But the strategy of indulgence is dangerous because the parent may go too far in rejecting violence. For example, he can refuse the rules altogether. This may lead the child to the conviction that all his desires and needs must be immediately satisfied, and that he should live only for the sake of pleasure. In the future, he may become intolerant of other people’s opinions, narcissistic and despotic in relations with others.
Democratic style
The best option is when parents combine control and exactingness with responsiveness. They respect the child and consider his opinion, but are able to gently resist behavior that they consider unacceptable (for example, if the child offends other children, is rude, or refuses to help around the house). At the same time, they will always try to explain to the child why they are angry with him or why they forbid him something. Relationships are thus built on dialogue.
An authoritative parent, unlike an authoritarian one, does not impose strict regulations on the principle of “what is not allowed is prohibited.” Rather, he sets the child a framework within which relative freedom reigns. Let’s say the authoritative parent says to the child, “You can play the console, but first make sure you’ve cleaned your room? We won’t do it for you.” Children of authoritative parents thus learn to understand boundaries and take responsibility for their actions.
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What if the parents have different styles?
In reality, parenting styles rarely match. Often there are families in this combination: a strict father and a soft mother. But the opposite also happens. A typical example is the family of Uncle Fyodor, the hero of the book by Eduard Uspensky from the Soviet cartoon Three from Prostokvashino. At first glance, the boy grows up independent – say, he can cook his own dinner. His parents are generally friendly, but their approaches to education differ. Mother often criticizes father: “You allow him everything, so he blossomed.” The father does not see anything wrong with the boy’s undertakings.
When Uncle Fyodor tries to bring a cat into the house, a conflict occurs. The boy is well aware that his mother will object, and even expects to play on the differences of his parents – “maybe dad will intercede.” But the father gives in to the mother’s ultimatum (“either the cat or me”). Then Uncle Fyodor decides to leave home. Obviously, there is a lack of dialogue here: parents who cannot agree among themselves send different signals to the child. This can confuse him, make him hypocritical and secretive.
Of course, each of us is to some extent dependent on the experience gained in our own family. But it is important to develop common principles. Then the child will clearly understand which of his actions are acceptable and which are not. And of course, it is important that the child understands: his opinion is heard, he is taken into account. Often it is this feeling, and not the purchase of a long-awaited toy, that turns out to be the most important thing.