Parental Behavior
Human Development
March 15, 2011

Abstract

Parental behavior is a very important topic because it focuses in different approaches that parents use to help with the development of their children. There are several ways in which children can be influenced by their parents and this behavior that parents acquire helps classify the parental style that is being adopted. There is also a correlation between parent’s behavior and their socioeconomic status. Children’s knowledge and attitude towards society comes mainly from what they learn from their parents, so it is very important that parents play as role models in front of their kids.

Parenting Styles
There are several aspects of kids’ education and relationship with their parents that help us classify four prototypic styles that parents adopt. We can do this first by looking at how much control parents show with their kids, the communication levels between them, and the capacity to express warmth and love. According to these different aspects we can categorize each parent as authoritative, authoritarian, permissive and uninvolved.
Authoritative parents’ basic attitude is understanding and education. They exercise their authority from tolerance and dialogue. No question or command, or trying to impose by force but, dialogue. These parents do not try to win, but but to convince. With all of these, children become more responsible, autonomous, reasonable, and happier.
Authoritarian: parents are highly demanding and directive, but not responsive. They are obedience- and status-oriented, and expect their orders to be obeyed without explanation. These parents provide well-ordered and structured environments with clearly stated rules. Authoritarian parents can be divided into two types: non authoritarian-directive, who are directive, but not intrusive or autocratic in their use of power, and authoritarian-directive, who are highly intrusive.
Permissive parents offer warmth and love, but lack of interest in the education of their children. They are educators that do not correct the children when they violate a standard rule of education. Most of the time, they accept any behavior that the kids show. Little or no punishment norm is followed when the kid behaves badly. In short, they allow their kids to do what they please in order to not complicate their life. The consequence of permissive education is a lack of awareness of what is right or wrong because the child will not have learned to internalize any moral standard.
Uninvolved parents are very indifferent and provide no control on their children. Most of the time this kind of parents do not pay attention to the child’s emotional needs and try not to spend much time with their kids. This case is very common in dysfunctional families. Children in this situation are free to do what they want without the need of asking for permission.
The prototype of the perfect father for the education and wellbeing of children is the authoritative parent, who is talkative and warm, but knows how to set limits and teach children about responsibility. As in all facets of life it is best to know how to keep a balance. On one hand demand that they are responsible and do their duty and on another show love and give them all the support they need. Achieving that balance always creates a very positive relationship with their children, but will be especially important when children reach adolescence.
Ways Parents Influence Children
Parents play an essential role in the development of the individual from birth to death, because that’s where personality is formed with all its features. According to our constitution, the family is the foundation of society; therefore parents are responsible for taking over the education of children.
School and family together play a major role on the development of the children. Outside