In response to Katie’s question, “Why are some kids better behaved than other kids?”

Due to the fact that I am a psychology major I suppose my answer to this question could be a bit bias. But I do have two younger siblings, some of my neighbors are kids and I work with kids, so I am surrounded by them. I think there are a number of factors that can be blamed for kids’ behavior but I believe all of them can be tied to the child’s parents.

First of all, thanks to psychology there are four types of parenting styles. They include authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, and uninvolved. Authoritative parents emphasis personal growth of the child and flexible dealings with the child but they still maintain high expectations. Authoritarian parents emphasis strict obedience and have high expectations of their children. Permissive parents serve as a resource for their child to use as they wish; they place very few demands on the child. Uninvolved parents are self explanatory….they simply aren’t involved. Again thanks to numerous studies it has been found that the best parenting style is authoritative parenting. The reason for this is because although they are willing to listen to their children and are open to possibly changing their decisions, they don’t let their children walk all over them. They are supportive and understanding of their children but they won’t let them get away with murder.

Others factors which can be related back to the parents are the child’s environment, the type of people they hang out with, and the time of attention they get. I believe even if a child has wonderful parents but they live in a bad neighborhood, they still have to potential to be bad kids. I also believe the opposite is true; if they have horrible parents but live in a wonderful neighborhood they can still turn out to be bad children. I also mentioned attention because of a little girl that I use to teach ballet. She is 7 years old, she was the oldest girl in the class and she was the worsted behaved. The 3 year olds were making better progress than her. She also had a sister who danced, but her sister has a learning disability so her sister got more attention from everyone, not just at dance but also at home. These poor girls have a bad home life; their father isn’t in the picture because he is in jail (and they know it) and their mother is a lesbian (not that I have anything against them…my best friend is a lesbian) and their mother was really sick…the one time that she actually brought them to class she told me that she was fighting cancer. So this poor 7 year old wasn’t getting the attention she needed or wanted. As much as she drove me insane I understand why she acted with way she did. This is a great example of the ever so popular nature/ nurture debate.

Question:

What kind of parenting style do you think your parents had/have?? Do you think you would be different, if they had raised you using a different parenting style??