The initial years of a child have a great impact on their life, whether it is the child’s academic performance or future relationships, personality or psyche, parenting has a key role to play in all of it. Let’s have a look at the most toxic type of parenting styles that you might wanna steer clear from:
1. AUTHORITATIAN PARENTING STYLE: This type of parenting is most common in dads. It involves a very strict parenting. It establishes rules and grounds on obedience. But is this type of parenting any good for our children?
Children that are raised with authoritarian parenting style are likely to turn out to be more timid, shy or even fearful. They end up having very low self esteem and poor decision making skills. Too much scolding or disciplining leads them into thinking that they end up doing everything wrong. Such children mostly tend to misbehave in their parent’s absence. This happens because they have always been in a very controlled environment, and once they are freed from that zone, they tend to take advantage of that freedom.
2. PERMISSIVE PARENTING STYLE: This type of parenting is typically presented by parents that long to be their children’s “friends”. This parenting lacks structure and they might end up giving too many rewards to the extent of bribing to get out desired behavior from their kid.
However, these type of parents can be very loving and nurturing but unfortunately, the impact of such parenting comes out quite the opposite of the intention. The children raised with such parenting ultimately lack discipline and motivation. They face issues with adhering to the authority. They become three times more likely to engage in substances abuse.
3. NEGLECTFUL PARENTING STYLE: This type of parenting style might be a result of either life events (like divorce, job stress, unavoidable health issues, etc.) or simply of negligence of responsibility. This can be very damaging to the psychological make-up of the child. The child grown up through this parenting will always face difficulties in forming adult relationships. Our relationship with our parents is reflected on the relationship with our spouse. Lack of connection and warmth with the parent will definitely lead to such consequences. These children might also face trust issues about people sticking back to them. This can result in them becoming more and more clingy.
4. TIGER PARENTING STYLE: This type of parenting style was first mentioned by Amy Chua in her book “Battle of the Tiger Mother”. It involves a parenting style where the parent puts too much emphasis on academic performance and career of the child. They might be pushing the child too hard into extra curriculars like sports or music. They can be obsessive about the practice schedules, discipline and marksheets. They knowingly or unknowingly pressurise their child to be ‘the best’. Now, such pestering parenting might be a projection of the parents about their own failures.
Such parenting can often result in the child ending up with mood disorders like anxiety and depression. They can have a negative temperament towards life. They also have seen to have very poor social skills as the over strict routine hardly allows time for socialisation.
5. HELICOPTER PARENTING STYLE: We can understand this type of parenting as ‘over-parenting’. These parents are overly involved in their child’s life. They are hovering over their child like helicopters! They are always hyper focused on their child’s safety and wellbeing. They end up guiding their child too much through life situations that end up in them developing poor problem solving and coping abilities. Facing challenges and failing is very important for the child to build resilience. It helps them learn how to deal with stress and remorse. Without these experiences, the child end up with a lot of anxiety once they have to deal with the real world. They can also have problem with their self esteem as they were never left free enough to build one!
6. LANDMOWER PARENTING STYLE: We all have met at least one type of such parent in our lives. They are the ones who over help their child resulting in the child being dependent on them with basic daily activities. Parents who keep dressing their child even after say 5-6 years of age or parents who do their children’s projects even if they are old enough to do it themselves are landmower parents. They simply ‘mow down’ all the obstacles in front of their child. This is a step ahead of helicopter parenting and results in even worse consequences. When the child is never left to struggle with anything they will end up having horrible coping strategies and problem solving abilities. They face trouble solving conflict and might develop a ‘give up’ attitude. They face immense trouble in handling stress and failure. Such kids are more likely to consume substance later in life as an escape from the problems they aren’t ready to face.
7. OUTSOURCING PARENTING STYLE: This type of parenting style is very common these days provided our busy lifestyles. It involves parents hiring caregivers or nannies to take care of the child. This type of parenting can result in children with a sense of insecurity within them. They can end up with feelings of doubt. In worst cases, these can result in disorders like Reactive attachment disorder and Disinhibited social engagement disorder.
Now, we have discussed enough ways to ruin our children. Let’s throw some light on the ideal form of parenting too.
The ideal parenting style is AUTHORITATIVE PARENTING STYLE. It is very different from ‘authoritarian’ style we discussed earlier. This type of parenting is balanced with authority and love. It is based on mutual respect for one another. The parent nurtures the child with warmth and love along with rationality. They engage in open communication about problems but also let the child fight his/her/their own battles. Children developed in such parenting style are more independent. They are at lesser risk of mood disorders like anxiety and depression. They are very less likely to engage in substance abuse as they have always learnt better problem solving abilities and coping strategies that they no longer have to rely on substance as an escape.
I hope this article helps the parents out their to reflect upon their parenting style and alter it, if necessary. And for the expecting parents to formulate a proper way to raise their child.
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