Janet Michelle Lewis
Parenting Practices
April 12, 2014

PARENTING PRACTICES

Parenting a child is a very important role. Parents teach a child how to behave and they provide the needs for the child. Parenting practices varies from generation to generation. In the chart below I have described parenting practices over generations in my family.

| Generation 1: Years (1960-1970) | Generation 2: Years(1980-2000) | Generation 3: Years(2000-2014) | Parenting Practice 1: Education | Medium standards | Medium standards | High standards | Parenting Practice 2:Religious Involvement | High standards | High standards | High standards | Parenting Practice 3:Breastfeeding | High standards | Medium standards | Low standards |
Parents used cooking and gardening as an extra curriculum activity. These activities are the ones that we had to be a part of. However, outside of these activities, we were not made or required to get involved in anything else.
Breast feeding was more of an economic issue. It was healthy and cheaper to breast feed our babies, early on in generations. Parents were more home bodies in earlier generations, where they focused more on taking care of their kids, in our family.

Contextual factors and its influence on parenting practices of each generation:
We have learned that parenting plays a huge part in child development, and the factors that shape parenting are particularly identified from outside. There are three contextual factors that influence then parenting of each generation such as; ethnicity culture, family socioeconomic status, and neighborhood/community (Kotchick & Forehand, 2002).
There is consistent evidence that contextual factors affect parenting. Kotchick and Forehand conclude that residence in dangerous or impoverished neighborhoods is associated with restrictive parenting practices and with lower levels of display material warmth towards children (Kotchick & Forehand, 2002).
Here are some contextual factors that may help to understand parenting: * Transnational families * Diversity in family forms * Kinship networks * Cultural philosophies of family Sibling relationships *