Children’s behavior is the most revealing reflection of their guardian’s parenting style. There are various parenting styles that guardians can adopt, such as Authoritarian, Permissive, and Authoritative. Authoritarian parenting is a style in which the parent excessively expects obedience, wants less conversation, and punishments are harsh. Permissive parenting is when the guardian is understanding yet does not show control in any manner. Authoritative parenting is when parents show warmth to the child, interact with them through conversation and provide an equal amount of control and punishment that is not too harsh (APA, 2018). The style parents conform to can have impacts on behavior issues and gender identity. Authoritarian and Authoritative are the two most focused on in this paper. The authoritarian style produces the most negative outcomes in a child’s life. It can cause one of two things; either the child obeys commands without question, or the child rebels at all costs. Another effect of parenting styles is that college age children may struggle with developing their gender identity while experiencing their new-found freedom. In this way a child may push the boundaries of their own gender identity as a form of rebellion. The same rebellious energy bottled up by years of unquestionable authority can also cause outbursts of inappropriate behavior, especially in foster children.
Socio-Cultural Perspective
In the article “Relationship Between Parenting Styles and Gender Role Identity in College Students”, Yi-Ching Lin and Robert Billingham discuss strong influencing factors on gender identity development in children and how they express it in college. The results demonstrate that authoritativeness is significantly correlated with shaping the gender identity of children, more specifically this style allows the child to develop a more androgynous gender identity. (Yi-Ching Lin, 2014) Androgyny is “the presence of male and female characteristics in one individual” (APA, 2018). This is ideal because society pushes on kids as they grow up that boys should be boys and play in the mud; likewise, girls should be girls, dress like girls, play with barbies, etc. Androgyny allows the child to decide what they want, and that will come from Authoritative parenting. The study also answers how parenting styles are correlated with gender role definitions as well as how those definitions are learned at such an early age. Lin and Billingham gave a questionnaire to 230 college students. The questionnaire began with questions about each parent and then transitioned to questions about their personal definition of gender roles. The questionnaire also includes questions on how the college students viewed themselves. The results of the two sets of questions categorized the participants into gender neutral and gender identity groups (female, male, undifferentiated, and androgynous). The participants answered the questions using a scale. For the first set of questions, the scale ranged from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), and for the second set from 1 (never or almost never true) to 7 (always or almost always true). (Yi-Ching Lin, 2014)
This study explains how gender roles are learned through experiences and interactions with others in childhood, and how this affects gender identity development. Since gender roles are learned at such an early age, the most frequent interactions are with that of the parent and influenced by them. This will inevitably shape how the child perceives gender roles and determining which gender identity they take on.
Behavioral Perspective
The other research study, “Impact of the parenting style of foster parents on the behavior problems of foster children”, by Fuentes, Salas, Bernedo, and Garcia-Martin, utilizes a behavioral perspective while investigating the impact of parenting styles on children. This study focused on foster parents and how they interacted with their foster children. Fuentes, Salas, Bernedo, and Garcia-Martin found that the authoritarian parenting style was positively correlated most with the children expressing inappropriate behavior.
Fuentes and colleagues discuss the different manners in which foster parents interact with their child. 104 foster families, with a child of at least 5 years of age and no psychological or emotional disabilities, were involved in the study. A variety parents of races, sexes, homo and heterosexual and single parents were all involved as well. The Affect and Communication Scale was administered to the parent and it determined in what manner and how often did the parent show warmth and communication. It also measured the degree of criticism and rejection shown from the parent to the child. The Rules and Demand Scale was then administered to the parents. The scale categorized their style of parenting. Lastly, the CBL/6-18 measured behavior problems of the child based off of the foster parent’s perception. Using the data from all 3 measures, they determined that authoritarian parenting is strongly correlated with all behavior problems reported in the study. Also, the authoritative parenting style showed progress among foster kids and they have fewer behavior problems. And lastly, authoritarian and permissive parenting styles are strongly correlated with externalizing behavior problems, which is a direct cause of the presence of criticism and rejection shown by the foster parent. (Fuentes, et al. 2015)
Implications
All parents have to decide on a parenting style. This is not always a conscious decision and sometimes it just kind of happens, but it is something all parents decide or develop. With implications like skewed gender identity and inappropriate behavior, that shows how crucial parenting is and how the child perceives it as well.
One cliché that society tends to push on people is that children are our future. If this is true, children who can confidently make their own decisions are best fit for society’s future. The limited time at home, during the child’s development, is the most influential time that shapes the child’s behaviors and sense of self. In the textbook, “Psychology: Themes and Variations”, by Wayne Weiten, he expresses how the child remembers the relationship with the parent and how fond it should be. The child’s decisions in adolescent years seem to reflect that of the relationship they have with the parent (Weiten, 2017). If the style is Authoritarian, they will make more radical decisions. If the style is Authoritative, they will feel confident and be able to make the decisions on their own without feeling pressure from their parents. Expressing the importance of this time to parents will help them understand that their relationship and actions towards their child can impact their own lives.
Societal issues such as suicidality, homelessness, and depression rates among the LGBTQ community reflect the negative repercussions of parental rejection. In the article “Homelessness, Mental Health and Suicidality Among LGBTQ Youth Accessing Crisis Services”, Rhoades, Rusow, Bond, Lanteigne, Fulginiti, and Goldbach, determined that youth were more likely to attempt suicide or even encourage it among others. (Rhoades 2018) This is an outstanding result that can come straight from parental style and rejection. As the LGBTQ community grows, the relationship between the child and parent becomes more and more important.
Education is a step in the right direction for parents and the development of children. Classes through the foster care system would be an ideal requirement so that parents will at least know how their actions like, yelling, showing love, or not showing love at all, can have on the child they are raising. Classes or education for parents through OB/GYN offices, colleges, or women centers would be another positive way to inform adults on how their actions can affect their child’s perception of self and gender identity. Seminars can be conducted and hands on activities could even be a solution. All of these would result in a decrease of inappropriate behavior, radical decisions, and less negative effects on gender identity development.
In today’s society, so much time in people’s lives is spent outside of the home. Factors such as technology, social media, school, and peers, limit the time spent at home. This is why parenting is so crucial to a child’s development. Children go through so much outside of the home like bullying, general social drama, and day-to-day self-expression, that coming home to a support system is key. Utilizing the small portion of time that parents have with their children at home is important for preparing them to make their own decisions. Authoritative parenting style will have the most positive outcomes in a child’s life and will allow them to make their own decisions and have a strong relationship with their parent. If research can be used to change how parents raise their children by teaching them about the importance of the child’s perception of warmth and love from the parents, having a relationship with them, and reducing the negative effects of parenting styles on behavior, the research will decrease the chances of negative behavior and skewed gender identity outcomes later in a child’s life.