Parenting Research

Parenting

Would you have come out different if your parents used a different parenting style? If you are considered "cool" now could you have come out a nerd if your parents would have used a different parenting style? Parenting style is one of the primary determinants of your child's outcome whether he succeeds, achieves, meets the challenges, flounders, gives up, or runs from or fails in handling life. The purpose of this paper is to describe the outcomes, processes, labor, and techniques of parenting in a psychological point of view. Parenting styles are defined as the "manner in which parents express their beliefs on how to be a good or bad parent." Each parenting style has its weaknesses and strengths. All parents incorporate love and limit in their style of parenting. There are four different types of parenting styles: authoritarian, permissive, authoritative, and uninvolved parents.

This particular topic is interesting to me because I have found myself on many occasions stating that a person was not raised well, due to their lack of manners, filthy language, and denseness. Parenting styles is relevant in today's society because it provides a robust indicator of parenting functioning that predicts child well being across a wide spectrum of environments and across diverse communities of children. Both parental responsiveness and parental demandingness are important components of good parenting. A study done in 2010 states that there is evidence to suggest that parenting practice matters, especially for educational outcome. For example, based on the National Educational Longitudinal Study conducted by McNeal, Jr. (1999) shows that students' truancy and drop-out rates are lower if parents are involved in parent-teacher associations, discuss educational matters with their child, or monitor their child's behavior.

Child development psychologists have long studied parenting style and their covariates. The work of Baumrind (1978-1991) is especially influential. Baumrind proposes a 3-fold typology of parenting style, which she refers to as authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive. Authoritative parents seek to direct their child's activities in a rational issue-oriented manner. They encourage verbal give and take by sharing with their child the reasoning behind parental policy and they would solicit the child's objections when the child refuses to conform. In this way, an authoritative parent exerts firm control . . . but does not hem the child in with restrictions (Baumrind, 1978). Authoritarian parents, on the other hand, do not encourage verbal give and take. They value obedience and favor punitive, forceful measures when parent-child conflict arises.

I expect to find that those who had authoritative parents will have higher levels of competence, high self esteem, and have superior academic performance to that of children from authoritarian, permissive, or uninvolved parents.

While conducting this research I recruited six people to interview and also have take an assessment. In order to have a good selection of people I requested the cooperation of three friends and three customers at work (Cricket Wireless.) Recruiting these six people was simple, after explaining the assignment, and showing them the twenty-five questions they must answer, including my short interview, they agreed. I requested this group to assist me with this particular assignment because I felt that with a more diverse age group I could collect more accurate data.

* Friends

o Mahmoud Dehaybi - Male, 19

o Tonya Miles - Female, 20

o Basma ElSharef - Female, 28

* Customers

o Janet Daniel - Female, 43

o David Wareham - Male, 52

o Hector Ahumada - Male, 56

The instruments I used in order to carry out this assignment were a combination of a twenty-question parenting style assessment and after a short five-question interview created by me. The assessment was used to determine their parenting styles and consisted of questions allowing for the participant to either 1 - Strongly Disagree, 2 - Somewhat disagree, 3 - Not Sure/Undecided, 4 - Somewhat agree, or 5 - Strongly agree. Subsequent to answering the questions the participant and I added up their total, a higher score reflects permissive parenting attitudes, while a lower score reflects authoritarianism. A score of 60 falls in the middle of each extreme and indicates authoritative views. After determining what type of parenting style they were, I went ahead and asked my few questions.

1. Did you have the desire or push from family to attend college?

2. What type of parents did you have now that you understand parenting styles?

3. Did you graduate high school? If not, why?

4. Do you believe that your parents had a great impact on your success and failures throughout your life?

5. What was the punishment for bad behavior/grades, and what was the encouragement for good behavior/grades?

I compiled all of the data including the survey questions, survey answers, interview questions/answers and general profiles of the individuals being surveyed. Since I verbally gave my participants the questions there was no need to check and see that there was a complete understanding of the questions.

After analyzing my data I was pleased to find that my hypothesis was indeed correct. Those who have authoritative parents proved to have higher levels of competence, higher self esteem, and have superior academic performance to that of children from authoritarian, permissive, or uninvolved parents.

Results:

* Authoritative parents raised Mahmoud, 19 and according to his assessment score he too has authoritative views (58). He did graduate high school with a GPA of 3.5 with much encouragement from his parents and is now attending college and is only one year away from graduating with a degree in engineering.

* Permissive parents raised Tonya, 20 and according to her assessment she too shares some permissive views (67). She did successfully graduate high school however she stated that it was a struggle for her, and she had to retake a few classes. She is not attending college, and does not have plans to in the near future. Tonya does believe her parents impacted her successes and failures because had she been encouraged to attend college she said " I might have honestly considered it." Tonya was also the only