by Heather Nhan
Researchers have long examined the impact of parenting on childhood outcomes. Often, conflicting outlooks on the best way to raise children come from any combination of biological, social, or cultural differences. What is consistent across the research is the way in which a child is nurtured and raised can impact their behavior, intelligence, academic success, mental health, social behavior, and many other aspects of their life while growing up and in the future. It is also important because parenting is crucial in helping a child adapt to and understand the world they live in; parental guidance remains an important facet in the child’s life until late adolescence where they become older and acquire the proper skills to protect and socialize themselves in the world (Uji, Sakamoto, Adachi, & Kitamura, 2014). One commonly examined factor in the child-parent relationship is influence of parenting styles.
The purpose of this project is to examine the interaction between parenting styles and other factors such as culture or gender as to look analyze the topic from a biopsychosocial perspective. This paper will discuss the different types of parenting styles as well as the outcomes associated with each style for children’s mental health and behavior. Specifically, I will discuss how parental gender affects parenting dynamics, how men and women personalities differ, and how they were socialized to behave. Then, I will consider how different cultural values interact with parenting styles, which may lead them to prefer a certain style over another due to traditional values and language. Finally, I will discuss how all three aspects-parental gender, parenting styles, and cultural values has an impact on how parents may choose to teach their children to best suit the environment in which they were raised.
Parenting Styles
The parental styles typically studied are authoritative parenting styles, authoritarian parenting styles, permissive or indulgent parenting styles, and neglectful or rejecting parenting styles. These different types of parenting styles are often determined by how much or little warmth (sometimes termed acceptance or responsiveness) and control (sometimes called parental involvement) that is consistently displayed (Kail, Ateah, & Cavanaugh, 2006; Barton & Kirtley, 2012).
Authoritative parenting styles are typically attributed to being both high and healthy in the amount of warmth and control they show their children (Barton & Kirtley, 2012) through direct instruction (Kail et al., 2006) and other verbal interactions (Argyriou, Bakoyannis & Tantaros, 2016). This means that parents who use this method will “attempt to direct the child’s activities but in a rational, issue-oriented manner. They encourage verbal give and take, and share with the child the reasoning behind their policy” (Baumrind, 1971). It has been suggested through research that authoritativeparenting styles are associated with higher degrees of task persistence, higher-self esteem, better academic success, and so on (Hibbard & Walton, 2014).
On the other hand, authoritarian parenting styles are likely to be high in control but low in warmth and will often discourage the amount of verbal interaction they have with their children (Argyriou et al., 2016) . Authoritarian parents “attempt to shape, control and evaluate their children’s behaviors and attitudes (Hibbard & Walton, 2014)” and often “value obedience as a virtue and favor punitive, forceful measures to curb self-will where the child’s actions and beliefs conflict with what they think is right conduct” (Baumrind, 1971). As a result, children who grew up from such methods often report lower levels of self-esteem, less self-reliance, and more overall stress from challenging tasks (Hibbard & Walton, 2014) and are atypical of prosocial behavior (Carlo, Fabes, Laible & Kupanoff 1999 as cited in Davis, Carlo, & Knight, 2014 p. 236).
In contrast, permissive-indulgent parents demonstrate high levels of warmth towards their children, but no control. Parents of this style often make few demands, allow for their children to regulate themselves with no intervention (Hibbard & Walton, 2014), and do not govern how their children should act or behave (Argyriou et al., 2016). Children of this particular type of parenting style show poor grades (Hibbard & Walton, 2014), poor self-management, reduced sense of support (Barton & Kirtley, 2012), and are at greater risk of developing drinking problems as adults (Whitney & Froiland, 2015).
Lastly, rejecting-neglectful parenting style is ascribed as being neither warm nor controlling- the parents of this style simply do not contribute to the relationship with the child. This parenting method “has been linked to poor emotional self-regulation, school achievement, depression, and even suicidal tendencies among females” (e.g., Ehnvall, Parker, Hadzi-Pavlovic, & Malhi 2008; Lamborn et al., 1991 as quoted in Hibbard & Walton, 2014 p. 271).
To demonstrate how parenting styles affect children’s development, studies on perfectionism have indicated that parenting styles did have different effects. Families that were typically perceived by their children as authoritative would be more prone to adaptive perfectionism or at least deter them from maladaptive dimensions. Authoritarian parenting styles were positively associated with feelings of being criticized, doubts of ability, and expectations of being perfect. Children also reported feeling more anxious and overwhelmed by challenges; permissive parenting styles were positively associated with trying new challenges; neglectful styles of parenting were positively correlated with similar maladaptive dimensions that were similar to those from authoritarian parenting. In context to the development of perfectionism, authoritative parenting styles typically result in adaptive perfectionism whilst authoritarian, permissive, and neglectful parenting styles typically resulted in maladaptive and neurotic facets of perfectionism (Hibbard & Walton, 2014).
Other studies tried to investigate whether or not authoritative parenting styles had any effects on children’s emotional intelligence. Authoritative parenting styles were positively correlated with higher emotional intelligence while authoritarian parenting styles contrasted by being negatively correlated with high emotional intelligence. Authoritative parenting styles were also strongly correlated with positive outcomes of self-esteem, self confidence (Argyriou et al., 2016)
Finally, in terms of other problematic behavior such as a drinking and alcohol abuse, research once again indicates that authoritative parenting is the golden key to helping prevent some of these problems. However, in this study, it seemed that permissive parenting styles were most likely to be positively correlated with alcohol abuse. In addition, paternal permissive parenting styles especially increased sons’ consumption of alcohol, particularly beer, which tended to result with more drinking problems (Whitney & Froiland, 2015).
A summation of all the studies that were analyzed indicated that authoritative parenting was often the best in terms of positive consequences for children. From a standalone perspective, authoritative parenting styles is typically the parenting style which has been associated with the best outcomes in terms of impact on a developing child’s mental health and influence on future behaviors.
Parenting Styles and Gender
Aside from parenting styles, there’s an interest in whether or not certain parental genders are more inclined to utilize a particular parenting style. While research about various parenting styles and their success exists, there is less research available that investigates differences in perceptions of maternal and paternal parenting or the association between certain parenting styles and parental gender (Uji et al., 2014)
At a foundational level, variations between men and women with respect to personality traits has been examined. For example, Weisberg, Y. J., DeYoung, C. G., & Hirsh, J. B. (2011) found that men and women’s personalities are slightly different from one another across ten aspects of the Big Five Personality Traits, which tests the person’s: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Although slight differences in personality were evident as there were differences between scores, the study showed that culture played a massive part towards how men and women’s personalities differed (Weisberg et al., 2011).
Beyond individual personality traits and culture, it is important to remember that family structure matters as well. Maternal parenting styles can differ from paternal parenting styles and therefore should be examined both individually and collectively. Parents are often associated as being a functional unit in which children are raised, but both parents will often play different roles in the child’s life. Quite often, children go to each parent for different reasons. For example, children may go to their fathers if they want to play, but will go to their mothers for nurture and support. Infants are also likely to form an attachment-bond with their primary caregiver, typically mothers, and rely primarily on that caregiver in infancy as a source of nurture and sustenance (Kail et al., 2006). It has been suggested in studies that maternal parenting styles often have the greatest effect on developing children (Barton & Kirtley, 2012). Thus, it can be concluded that mothers and fathers play somewhat different roles in context of parenting and may have to parent and behave differentlythan each other, based on their respective genders, in order to be the best attuned to their child’s needs. The child naturally discriminates that the female-gendered parent is for nurturance and support and that the male-gendered parent as a playmate, thus it is important to recognize such behaviors and prepare to respond to them accordingly.
Likewise, we can begin to consider that men and women, though similar enough, still hold many disimilarities in the ways they were socialized to behave, speak, and think. From a general standpoint, women are often perceived and socialized to be more agreeable and are taught to express their emotions more freely than men. It is common in many cultures for women to be considered the “relationship managers” and are responsible for comforting and supporting others. Since women are permitted to express a broader range of emotions but are also expected to be more agreeable and pleasant, they are also “more likely than men to express emotions that support relationships and suppress emotions that assert their own interests over another’s” (Brody & Hall, 2000 as quoted in McCornack p. 112). In terms of evidence for the gender of parents having an impact, it has been shown through multiple studies that maternal figures may very well affect different traits of a developing child. It has been shown by studies done amongst Latino and Hispanic youth that maternal parenting had a significant impact on how cultural, social, and gender roles as well as prosocial tendencies were enacted in children. Results of that study indicated that those who were raised by parents- especially mothers- high in warmth and support were often more likely to demonstrate prosocial behavior and showed indication of less enforced traditional gender roles in children, especially daughters (Davis, Carlo, & Knight, 2014). In Japan, maternal figures were often perceived as authoritative or permissive and were directly related to aspects of perceived mental health in children later on. Like the previous studies, Japanese mothers who were authoritative were often directly linked with aspects of mental health in children. Authoritative maternal parenting was often linked to better mental health where individuals showed qualities that didn’t put themselves or others in harms way (Uji et al., 2014). Clearly, these studies indicate that parental roles are quite often divided by gender and each gender contributes to the child’s development differently through different parenting styles. The most important factor to consider is the effects of authoritative maternal parenting and how it directly and positively impacts children to behave more prosocially and be less adhering to traditional gender roles and stereotypes.
Parenting Styles and Culture
While gender has an important impact on parenting styles, as indicated earlier, it is also important to consider the role of culture. Culture is responsible for shaping an individual’s personality as well as many of their values (Weisberg et al., 2011). In addition to being socialized to be dissimilar from each other, cultures and parenting styles may often times interact and impose certain traditional gender role values on the respective gender in terms of roles they may play in the parent-child relationship (Kail et al., 2006). For instance, the study done on Hispanic and Latino youth suggest that parenting style and the cultural nativity in mothers would affect the outcome of how children were socialized to behave. The authors discovered that maternal nativity had a differential impact on outcomes for children. In Latino male youth, maternal nativity was positively correlated with public prosocial tendencies. Supportive parenting from both parents was also directly positively associated with altruistic prosocial tendencies but not public prosocial tendencies. For Latino female youth, results showed that perceived supportive parenting was negatively correlated with traditional gender roles values but was positively correlated with altruistic prosocial tendencies. Firm parenting styles were associated with high values for respect among boys and girls. However, high level of respect was not associated with practice of traditional gender roles. The study also suggests that Latino families tend to demonstrate firm and supportive parenting styles “which is consistent with prior research”, but also shows that by having both parents using similar methods, outcomes seem to be more positive (Davis et al., 2014).
Another study indicated that culture played part in setting up family dynamics which, as a result, affected parenting styles and child development was further elaborated in: “The Impact of Authoritative, Authoritarian, and Permissive Parenting Styles on Children’s Later Mental Health in Japan: Focusing on Parent and Child Gender”. During this study, they identified that the Japanese work force often shaped how men and women were supposed to behave, which integrated certain roles, even in terms of family dynamics. Because men were traditionally assigned the role as the primary bread earner in the family, as well as being the head of the household, Japanese paternal parenting was often perceived to be more authoritative in comparison to Japanese maternal parenting. Likewise, since women in Japan are traditionally assigned the role of the caretaker of the household, that role becomes applied especially in maternal parenting styles which are typically perceived to be more authoritative and sometimes permissive in comparison. While there’s a demand for a cultural shift for Japanese paternal figures to become more authoritative as well for the sake of mental health, the study also mentioned that there’s other cultural factors which effect why parenting styles may differ.
Compared to Western cultures, Eastern cultures are typically more collectivistic rather than individualistic hence the emphasized reliance on authoritarian parenting which prohibits self-expression. In contrast, as some Eastern societies value collectivism, it’s arguable that authoritarian parenting style may be the best suited to socializing the child to best fit the culture which they were born into (Uji et al., 2014). In addition, language that is used to parent is inherently tied into the culture. Language, though often taken for granted, can have effects on aspects of life such as how a person may think, feel and behave (McCornack, M., 2007). In terms of parenting styles, parents are responsible for communicating and interacting with children in order to teach them about the environment (which they live in) and the world (Kail et al., 2006). Again, analyzing results from the study done about Japanese parents, the Japanese not only value more collectivistic identities but also utilize language that- like Chinese- reinforces a certain power hierarchy where older males are typically the designated “leader” both within the workforce and at home (Uji et al., 2014). The emphasis on a person in charge sets the standard that those who are not as old or male cannot possibly be in charge of the family. That same emphasis on who is in charge makes it so that there’s a power distance between individuals within the household meanwhile assigning a certain order. Looking once more at Japanese culture and language, you find that filial pietyis another shared characteristic with Chinese culture and belief which stresses absolute obedience as well as utmost reverence towards one’s parents and elders (The School of Life, 2015). In such cultures, parents are responsible for controlling all aspects of their child’s life often limiting certain behaviors or ideologies that may be considered individualistic through punitive measures in order to “curb self-will and beliefs (which) conflict with what they think is right conduct” (Baumrind, 1971). Because of the language, the culture where they share the value offilial piety becomes one that enforces individuals not to question authority because utmost obedience is the expected norm within that society (The School of Life, 2015; Chen, K., 2013). As a result, it is very likely that those aspects of culture and language interact and make it so that paternal parenting styles are perceived to be much more authoritarian as a result.
Other aspects which may affect parenting styles include: the amount of education the parents receive; whether or not both parents are the biological parents; whether the household consists of a single-parent or both; age when children are born and raised; and so on (Kail et al., 2006). Depending on the culture where the parents were raised and socialized and the culture which the child is born, these aspects can affect parenting styles and have different consequential effects on development of children.
Parenting Styles, Gender, and Culture
Looking once again at the previous studies, parenting styles, parental gender, and culture interact to have different outcomes on children’s mental health and displayed behaviors. While parenting styles are directly associated with child development, gender and culture are extended pressures which shape parents and influence how they may choose to parent (Kail et al., 2006).
Again, looking at the research done in Japan, we see that the language and culture which places a value on filial pietyand traditional gender roles results in reinforcement in parenting styles. Due to the reinforcement of gender roles at home and in the workplace, Japanese mothers are socialized to practice authoritative or permissive styles; Japanese fathers are put in a position to practice authoritarian parenting styles. Thus, paternal parenting and maternal parenting end up varying. As a result of these differences, authoritative maternal parenting is seen to be linked with displaying less problematic behavior that put individuals and others at risk. Meanwhile, due to commonly authoritarian paternal parenting, it was indicated in the studies that subjects would report symptomatic problems in regard to mental health as well as damaging life functions. These results indicated that it would be wise for Japanese fathers to adopt more authoritative approaches when raising children (Uji et al., 2014).
Compared to Japanese culture, the study done upon Hispanic and Latino parents indicated that it was normal for both parents to practice similar parenting styles which demonstrated high levels of warmth and control (authoritative parenting style) during parenting. In addition, the study noted that socialization of traditional gender values and cultural behaviors among children was greatly impacted by the mother’s culture- dependent on whether she was native or non-native. During that particular study, subjects indicated that there was no perceivable gender differences in parenting styles. Mothers who were natives of Hispanic or Latino culture often used authoritative parenting styles and would socialize their children to act prosocially, but would be less likely to enforce traditional gender roles upon their own children (Davis et al., 2014).
Clearly, parenting styles cannot be analyzed separately from aspects of culture and gender which affect both parent and child. Though we may not actively consider external forces which impact parenting styles, it has been shown that several factors will affect how parents will socialize their kids (Kail et al., 2006). As parents themselves were originally children, they too have been exposed to different parenting styles, raised in different cultures, and expected to perform different roles dependent on their gender. How they were raised impacts how their children were raised, who will go through the exact same cycle, and so on. Although it is a complex cycle which considers multiple aspects which contribute to the entire parenting experience, the findings in these studies mentioned previously indicate that further research may need to be done in order to grasp a better understanding of parenting styles from a broader variety of cultures, still. However, research indicates that authoritative parenting styles generally result in socially, behaviorally, and culturally appropriate behavior in children. This suggests authoritative parenting styles may be the most reliable in terms of producing favorable outcomes in improved mental health, healthy life functions, and so on.
Discussion
From this analysis, it is clear that parenting styles should not be considered as independent from aspects such as culture and gender, both of which both play a massive role in influencing how parenting styles are conveyed to children. During research, the reoccurring theme that authoritative parenting had the most reliable and significant outcomes on positively affecting emotional intelligence, mental health, self-esteem, self-regulation, as well as likelihood of prosocial behavior(Argyriou, Bakoyannis & Tantaros, 2016; Uji, Adachi, & Kitamura, 2014; Davis, Carlo, & Knight, 2014; Barton & Kirtley, 2012). All other parenting styles seemed to fall short or were negatively associated with said traits. Some studies suggested that the parenting styles besides authoritative parenting style were positively associated with problematic behavior such as alcohol abuse (Whitney & Froiland, 2015) and harmful behavior to oneself or others (Barton & Kirtley, 2012; Uji, Sakamoto, Adachi, & Kitamura, 2014). In addition, some of these studies found that, while parental gender does affect certain outcomes, parenting styles being shared amongst parents is also an incredibly important factor which affects children’s’ development (Uji, Sakamoto, Adachi, & Kitamura, 2014; Davis, Carlo, & Knight, 2014; Argyriou, Bakoyannis & Tantaros, 2016). Collectively, this research suggests that culture does impact how a child is raised, but culture cannot be viewed independently from other factors such as parenting style and gender.
Research also indicated that certain parenting styles may elicit different responses in children of different gender. In addition to these findings, parental gender may often play a role in the overall parenting experience. For example, authoritative parenting styles will make both genders report higher overall emotional intelligence, but males are more apt in even higher scores when compared to high scoring females (Argyriou et al., 2016). In contrast, permissive parenting especially from the paternal side would negatively affect male children and result in a higher chance of developing drinking problems in the future (Whitney & Froiland, 2015). These studies also reaffirmed that authoritative parenting styles from both parents typically evoked the best responses from their children in the form of reports of higher self-esteem, better grades and school performance, improved mental health, and many other beneficial facets of life.
Based on the literature for cultural research in relation to parenting styles, we know that parental nativity can impact the socialization of certain cultural and traditional gender-role values (Davis et al., 2014). In some cases, cultures that are governed by more traditional patriarchal societies where traditional gender-roles are enforced may be more likely to show differences in parenting styles between paternal and maternal parenting (Uji et al., 2014). In addition, it is evident that paternal and maternal parents play different roles in the development of children. Whereas the child may seek their mother out to be the primary-caretaker and a source of nurturing and sustenance, the father may be the individual who enforces rules and is responsible for playing with the child (Kail et al., 2006).
Limitations
While these studies support that authoritative parenting is typically the type of parenting which elicits the best results in terms of mental health and socialization, there are still limitations that must first be accounted for before drawing a conclusion. Though many of the studies suggest that authoritative parenting styles have the best outcomes upon development in children in terms of mental health, none of the studies have expressed how certain parenting styles may teach their children to behave in certain ways in different cultures. Moreover, there is a lack of consideration for details in the studies pertaining culture which compare the effects in the culture of origin versus the culture of residence. Other facets of culture to be considered may be the average age of parents, socioeconomic status, as well as amount of education.
In addition, many of these studies which were analyzed for this project also relied on self-reporting surveys which have long been subject to skepticism towards their accuracy based from individual reports. Self-reporting surveys may cause discrepancies in perception of parenting styles. Furthermore, many of these surveys which were used in these studies were designed to be used with adolescents as compared to younger children or older adults which were also considered. Most of the available studies were not performed longitudinally as well as being performed on a very small population of people, meaning that many of the results can not be applied to bigger populations or be generalized for other people of different culture and ethnicity as some of the original samples in the study.
Lastly, none of these studies seemed to investigate parents of same gender and styles they chose or any non-traditional family arrangements. As same-gender marriage becomes more widely accepted, studies should be conducted to gauge whether or not the same-gender relationship dynamic has any impact on children’s development as they lack the traditional set-up of paternal and maternal figures. There were not many detailed and available studies which investigated parenting style and outcome which extended past nclear family units to include extended, single-parent, and blended families.
Conclusion
This project investigated whether or not parenting styles, parental gender and culture impacted children’s development through displayed and/or observable behaviors through a review of existing literature. My research considered multiple studies done on various different cultural groups and age groups in order to gauge a broader spectrum of various different parenting styles across different cultures to see whether they were similar or dissimilar in their effects on children’s development. I first analyzed parenting styles by itself and how different styles of parenting affected reports in mental health. Then I considered how parenting styles and parent gender interacted with each other. Next, I explored how parenting styles and culture interacted with each other as well as how the language of certain cultures influenced styles of parenting. Lastly, I examined how different parenting styles, parental gender, and culture all interacted with each other to produce different outcomes.
Like many other studies, those included in the research reaffirmed that authoritative parenting styles were often the most often associated with individuals reporting positive traits such as higher self-esteem, better grades and academic success, improved mental health, and were less likely to exhibit behavior that can be considered harmful to oneself or others. Other parenting styles were again more likely to be negatively correlated to those traits, while some being essential indicators of maladaptive, neurotic behavior as well as possible development of harmful behavior towards others or towards oneself. The studies that were analyzed suggested that there may sometimes be no perceptible differences in parenting styles among parents of different gender, but may still have some effect on children’s development. In addition, both parents who were perceived to be authoritative were linked to their children reporting the most favorably in terms of self-esteem, self-reliance, academic success, popularity, and other areas even more so than children who perceived only one parent as being authoritative. What is most clear from this analysis is the complexity of parenting environments and the interactivity between several factors.
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