Parenting Styles
Parenting styles are psychological methods that parents use to bring up their children. There are many different styles and opinions used by parents to rear their children. There is no standard technique to be used and it all depends on the individual parent. Few parents realize the need of bringing up their children in a responsible way and some dedicate very little time to their children. Parenting styles are created from a combination of factors which changes over time. In practice there are mainly four parenting styles that have been used by many parents (Web, Gore & Amend, 2007).
The first parenting style is referred to as authoritative parenting or balanced parenting. In this style, parents’ attention is directed to the child and they hold high expectations of the child’s maturity. An authoritative parent is one who understands his children and uses everything within his means to regulate their behavior. In case of problems or difficulties, the parent helps the children to solve them. In authoritative parenting, children are encouraged to be independent and limits are set to control their actions. Children learn to be responsible and a bond develops between the child and the parent.
Authoritarian (parenting) is rather demanding as opposed to being responsive. Parents expect children to follow their orders without giving them room for self expression. Children live according to the rules and direction given by the parents and they are denied the chance of voicing out their views. Little dialogue is allowed between the child and the parent. Children live with fear and may have problems in their social lives with their friends (Web, Gore & Amend, 2007).
The other parenting style is referred to as indulgent parenting. In this style, parents tend to be responsive but not demanding. They allow their children to make choices without regulating their actions. Parents are usually responsive to the child’s need and wants and are very nurturing. However, they expect their children to be responsive and rarely do they give out orders or punish the children when they go wrong. Such children grow up to be irresponsible and may indulge themselves in unacceptable behaviors such as drug abuse.
Where parents are not demanding or responsive, then they are said to be engaged in neglectful style parenting. They are less concerned about the children’s behavior and are not involved in their child’s life. Children brought up by neglectful parents tend to be emotionally detached from social institutions. They grow up with a perspective that their parents have other important aspects in their lives than they are to them.
Gender-Schema and Social Cognitive Theory
Gender schema theory suggests that children knowledge of the concept of what is meant to be a man or a woman is learnt from the culture. It proposes that children’s behavior is determined by the gender expectations and norms that they learn from the culture. Gender schema plays a crucial role in the development of gender roles. It emerges at the early years of a child’s life. In the early childhood, children form concepts (schema) as they struggle to understand the world they live in. Before the age of one year, a child can be able to distinguish between a male and a female voice and face (Golombok & Fivush, 1994). After the age of two, children organize their world based on gender and this is through language. Boys tend to play in outdoor settings and spend less time in the house whereas girls tend to play indoor games and will spend most of the time in the house. Social cognition is a psychology theory used in education and communication. It proposes that the acquisition of part of an individual’s knowledge is directly influenced by the behavior of others within the context of social interactions (Merrell, 2003). People learn through observation of what others do. Likewise children tend to acquire social behaviors related to what the members of the society do.
The negative aspect of the gender schema theory or the social cognitive theory is that from that early age, men will grow believing that they are male meaning “strong, masculine, and smart” while women will grow with the perception that they are “sweet, feminine, and dumb”. This may even extend to the work place and we find women being discriminated on the bases of gender.
Information Processing
Between the age of two and five, children develop skills that enable them to focus attention for a long period of time. They are able to recognize previous information that they encountered, can remember old information, and restructure to fit the present. A three year child can recall where she went during holidays and narrate it to her friend when she goes back to school. The formation of long term memory begins at age of two to five and that’s why most people cannot recall their childhood experience prior age 2. The formation of long term memory involves storage of information of events such as plays. At the age of five to seven, children learn how to use and pay attention on their cognitive abilities for explicit purposes. They gain skills that help them in memorizing words and facts and this marks the beginning of the child’s education. At this age the child develops a large capacity for processing information which enables him to connect old and new information. His knowledge continues to expand and he becomes better organized (Oswalt, 2008).
At the early childhood children develop metacognition ability or “the ability to think about thinking”. They acquire a better understanding of how the brain works and they realize that they can control their brains. This is very important for school age children since it helps them to develop and establish strategies for learning.
References
- Golombok, S., & Fivush, R. (1994). Gender development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
- Merrell, K. W. (2003). Behavioral, social, and emotional assessment of children and adolescents. New York: Routledge
- Oswalt, A. (2008). Early childhood cognitive development: information processing.
- Web, J. T., Gore, J. L., Amend, E. R. (2007). A Parent’s Guide to Gifted Children. Scottsdale: Great Potential Press, Inc.