The Role of Different Parenting Styles in Children's Behavior

In this contemporary world, we have come across many parents and the parenting styles they use to raise the child for the better. The different styles of parenting used on a child can impact the child's behavior and their relationship with their parent. Parenting styles plays a huge role as parents both mold and react to children's behavior over the period of time. Darling and Steinberg (1993) defined parenting style as the global trend of the bond between parent and children. Parenting style is the ground factor to a child's development.

It affects the social and psychological wellbeing of the children. Parenting Styles are mostly inherited by one's own parents.

According to Darling and Steinberg (Darling & Steinberg, 1993), parenting styles will impact a child's development and adaptation to the environment because they give emotional context. The mood of the parent and the child influence the way of parenting, and parenting styles of the mother and the father may vary as well (Belsky, 2005).

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Diana Baumrind (1967, 1978, 1991) classified parents according two ranges, responsiveness and demandingness, and four different kinds of parenting styles: Authoritarian style has low responsiveness and high demandingness; Authoritative style has a high responsiveness and high demandingness; Permissive style, which is labeled by high responsiveness and low demandingness; and Uninvolved style has both low in responsiveness and demandingness. Responsiveness can be defined as the parental support and warmth whereas Demandingness can be defined as the control the parent has over the child.

The definition of the different kinds of parenting styles as follows.

Authoritarian Parenting style practice well-structured rules and expects to be obeyed without any explanations. Authoritative Parenting style practice assertiveness and being supportive towards their children. Permissive Parenting style practice lenient parenting. Most parents who adopt this style avoid confrontation.

Lastly, uninvolved Parenting style practice neglecting of child. No interest is showed towards the child from the parents. Previous studies have shown that different parenting styles, especially authoritarian and authoritative parenting styles have major impact on a child's development. For instance, Leung et al. (1998) study concluded that authoritarian parenting had a positive impact on the children's achievement compared to authoritative parenting style. In contrast to the study above, Chen et al. (1997) research derived a positive effect on authoritative parenting and Shek (1999) research presented that authoritative parenting style led to demoralization and low self-esteem in a child. Therefore it can be hypothesized that authoritative parenting style will have a positive impact on the development of a child.

The main goal of this paper is to examine the parenting styles that have an impact on the child's development. The focus will be on 2 parenting styles, which are the Authoritative and Authoritarian parenting styles. Furthermore, the main characters of the movie "Everybody's Fine" will be evaluated and used as a reference for the different parenting styles. There will a brief insight on each main character and how they were brought up. The impact that the different parenting styles have on the characters' development will also be analyzed too.

Literature ReviewSeveral studies have been made on the different styles of parenting, focusing mainly on the authoritative and authoritarian parenting style. Authoritative Parenting Style is very much child-centric. The children are able to voice out their opinions, are treated fairly and are nurtured with warmth by their parents. Hence, according to Williams et al. (2009), the authoritative parenting style has more positive developmental outcomes for children compared to the other parenting styles. However, the authoritarian parenting style is the exact opposite of the authoritative parenting style.

It is an approach with strict rules and high expectations of parents. Parents have too high expectations on their children, no freedom of speech given to children and do not express their love to them. Therefore Buri et al. (1998), stated that the authoritarian parenting style does more harm to a person's self-worth.

The movie, "Everybody's fine" can be relatable to the different styles of parenting. The movie is essentially about a lonely widower who sets off to surprise his children who bailed out on him for a family Christmas dinner. Throughout the movie, the character Frank who is the lonely widower in the movie, gets disappointed more often as the children he thinks he knows do not exists. It is very precise that the information Frank knows of his kids are the generic ones and do not know them as well as his wife did.

In my opinion, his four children are somewhat close to him but keep their distance due to his way of parenting them. Research has shown that the mothers of the family are more inclined to be affectionate and caring towards their children while the fathers are widely known for their role of disciplining and financing the children (Mackey, 1996; Stern, 1995). Thus, it can be derived that the character Frank adopted the authoritarian style of parenting while Frank's deceased wife, adopted the authoritative style of parenting.

In the movie, there was a scene with the Frank and his daughter character Rosie. The both of them will be talking and Frank will question her why his children, his three other children, do not share information with him but they easily share it will their mother. And Rosie replied saying, their mother was a good listener while he was a good talker and worries too much. One of the characteristics of using the Authoritative parenting approach is to hearing out the child's opinions. In this scenario it shows how being a good listener towards a child can help them to confide in the parent and be comfortable with them. As the child grows up, it helps them to be confident and they will be in ease to know that they can rely on someone when in sadness.

Another scenario in the movie, is when Frank is playing golf with Jack, Amy's son, and he casually asked about his grades, congratulating him on his good grades. Jack then confessed that his grades are slipping and he did not seem interested did not seem interested him his grades. "Hope to be the best and get to the top", one of the quotes Frank told Amy was passed down to Jack. It is basically letting Jack or then Amy know to do everything they possible can and be the top scorer in terms of grades. Authoritarian parenting approach does not hear out the child's opinions and simply orders the child to follow the rules and regulations set.

From these two scenarios from the movie, it can be concluded the different style of parenting does impact a child's development. It is also very apparent on why the children characters are more attached to their mother, who used the authoritative approach, than their father. Towards the end of the movie, there will be a scene whereby Frank will be talking to his wife's grave. He will be speaking about how he should have been more attentive and made more effort to get to know more about his kids when he had a proper chance. Although the movie ended on a happy note, the problems would not have existed if Frank would have adopted an authoritative parenting style. His children would have not drifted apart and they would have grown up to be a better person than now.

Overall, judging from the way the child characters have grown up, it can be derived that the children of Frank were neglecting their father because they were being neglected by their father when they were children. The awkward handshakes and hugs is very much visible that the bond between them are not as strong.

As expected, the number of research and positive findings on authoritative parenting style are countless. Therefore, it supports the hypothesis made in this paper. However I beg to differ on the impacts it has on a child's development. As Family is the primary point of contact that boosts necessary resources and opportunities for the healthy development of children (Wake M, Nicholson JM, Hardy P, Smith K. Pediatrics (2007). It can be agreed that parents are one of the main factor in a child's development but the style of parenting depends on the child. In my opinion, every child is different and not every child can be adapted to a particular style of parenting. I feel that a certain characteristics of authoritarian parenting style should be infused along Hence I agree to a certain extend that authoritative parenting approach has a positive impact in a child's development.

For instance, if a child is given much freedom by the parents and misuse the freedom given, the parents are then set on disciplining the child. At this point, not every child will listen to what the parent has to say. Some of them will voice out their opinions and the authority of the parents might be shaken. This leads to unnecessary fights and it might strain the relationship of the parent-child. It can also affect the development of human. Also, parenting styles are not the only factor that impacts a child's development. Environment indeed plays a contributing factor on the impacts of a child development. Further research needs to be done on this to enhance better understanding