Child Rearing Styles

My research participants were working class parents, one of whom is a 35 year old Indian male which is the same ethnic group as I am (participant 1) and the other a 26 year old White male (participant 2). With regard to the information gathered, both parents have similar parenting styles. Both scored highest for authoritative child-rearing style (32 for participant 1 and 38 for participant 2) and second highest on authoritarian parenting style (with scores of 31 and 35 respectively).

Tutorial Letter 101 for PYC4805 (2013) mentions that high scores of these two parenting styles could indicate that these parents follow the authoritative style but may act in accordance with the authoritarian style in certain situations (Tut letter 101 PYC4805). Kendra Cherry of About. com enlightens us on each parenting style; the authoritative style parents establish rules and guidelines for which children are expected to follow. This parenting style is much more democratic.

Parents are responsive, nurturing, forgiving rather than punishing as well as willing to listen to their children and supply them with advice and guidance. The authoritarian style explains that there are strict rules which parents implement for their children to follow and failure of abiding by these rules is most likely to result in punishment. Parents of this style generally neglect to explain the reasoning behind these rules. These parents place high demands on their children, but are not responsive to them.

Uninvolved parenting styles yielded the lowest scores of 19 and 10 for each participant; this is characterised by few demands, low responsiveness and little communication. The prosocial behaviour scores were again very similar (participant 1 scored 90 and participant 2 scored 87). Participant one’s child is a 5 year old boy and has more experience in social settings with other children. He attends school and has 3 siblings of which he is the second child, as well as spending a lot of time with other family members, especially his grandparents; this creates many environments in which to adapt and learn prosocial skills.

Dekovic & Janssens (1992) found that a child’s acceptance by a peer group plays an important role in his or her social and personality development. Participant two’s child is a 2 year old boy, is an only child and does not attend day-care and lacks exposure to social settings involving other children. He spends on average, 70 hours a week with his father and is also at an age where he depends on the care of his parents more. Participant 1 spends an average of 29 hours a week.