Parent-Child Relationship: Impact on Life Even in Adulthood - Essay Sample

Introduction

The family institution is the first identity for any individual. Therefore, family relationships, specifically the parent-child relationship, has a significant effect on how the children relate to other people even when they grow up. Children need their parent's affection and guidance to strengthen social behaviors. The type of parenting style chosen by the parents has a significant impact on the life of the children even when they are already grown up. Diana Baumrind designed the first parenting style model, whereby parents' choice of parenting style is determined by the degree to which they need to be in charge of their children's actions, and the best of they see of expressing their affection to their children (Scott, 3). Therefore, parents must find a way of expressing their love to their children and, at the same time, maintain the right amount of authority over their children's behaviors.

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There are three kinds of parenting styles that are authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive parenting styles. Authoritarian parents would prefer to have the supreme authority in the actions of their children, therefore, showing less affection. Children of strict parents have difficulties expressing themselves as adults, thus have more difficulties forming interpersonal relationships. Permissive parents give their children the freedom to make their own decisions without their interference. Such parents rarely express any affection to their children. The effect of a child being raised by permissive parents is that they have relationship issues as a result of neglect from their parents.

Authoritarian parents have high control over the behaviors of their children, and at the same time, they can express their affection to their children. They permit their children to express themselves, but they retain their authority over their children. These children are more likely to have good relations as children and even when they grow up. The children brought up by authoritative parents trust their parents because they listen to their opinions, and they grow to be independent individuals in society.

Previous research has linked the choice of parenting style used in development stages in children and the kind of relationships the children create with others when they grow up. Parents are the first agents of socialization of their children, and so they influence the prosocial outcomes as their children transition to adulthood (Alemayehu & Jian-Zhong, 2). Good human relation includes staring conversations leading to friendships and having positive attitudes towards how their actions affect other people. Parenting styles that encourage children's involvement in the decision-making process usually leads to better relations with others. Therefore, parents affect their children's relationships with others even though they are not the ones socializing with other people. The outcome of the parenting style used by parents will affect not only children's childhood but also their adolescence and their adulthood. Most parents either use authoritative parenting or authoritarian parenting styles with each style having very opposite results.

Baumrind’ S Model of Parenting

Baumrind researched the effect of the relationship between children and their parents on the children's lives by examining the freedom of children to make their decisions and the parents' control over the children's' actions. She based her typology on nurturance, degree of control, level of expected maturity from children, and the communication between parents and their children. With these features, she developed that parenting styles can be classified into three major categories. According to Baumrind's theoretical model, the first category consisted of stringent parents who showed less affection for their children. The second category consisted of parents who are very affectionate but not strict. The last group in her typology consisted of parents who balanced between expressing their affection to their children and maintained control over their children's behavior. Baumrind's model can be used to predict the child's socials skills, psychological growth and problem behaviors. It can also be used to explain why people have different adult relations.

Authoritative Parenting

The authoritative parenting style is whereby the parents expect high responsiveness from their children and high demand from their children. According to Baumrind's typology, authoritative parents balance between maintaining their control as parents and expressing their love to their children. The children raised by authoritative parents are given the freedom to make their own decision, but the parents set their limitations. Authoritative parents tend to have high expectations from their children, but they understand their children's abilities. There exists good communication between parents and their children.

Children whose parents preferred to use the authoritative parenting style grow up to be independent individuals who can form long-lasting subsequent adult relations. Authoritative parents teach their children how to handle and manage situations, good or bad, that they generally face in life. With such experience, these children will be able to handle the frustrations that arise in their relationships with others instead of shutting down. Authoritative parents understand that their children need to learn some things on their own, and so the children gain skills on how they can deal with situations on their own. When these children grow up to adulthood, they already have the tools necessary to make relations with bother and maintain a good relationship.

The children who grow up with authoritative parenting are not only more likely to be disciplined but also enthusiastic about life. They have a positive attitude towards other people in society. Since their parents practiced open communication with them, these children learn to communicate better with people. Excellent communication and negotiation skills are necessary when creating and maintain healthy emotional, interpersonal relationships with other people in society. They are more likely to be curious. All these characteristics help these children have the necessary social skills needed to form relationships even as they grow through adolescence to adulthood.

A study carried out by Wilhelm et al. (2) reveals that adolescents who have a positive relationship with their mother and their fathers were not the authoritarian type are more likely to have significant adult attachments. The adolescents feel secure about the attachments they have as adults. Stable subsequent adult relationships are connected with high emotional support from parents during childhood. Besides having excellent emotional support, children raised by authoritative parents have high self-esteem, which helps them have more secure attachments both as children and as adults. Thus, authoritative parenting promotes social acceptance to their children, which leads to better subsequent adult relations.

Authoritarian Parenting Style

Authoritarian parenting style is associated with parents who show less warmth to their children, but they expressed very high control in their children's behaviors. Although these parents like to supervise their children's behavior, their relationship with their children is very distant. The power these parents have in their children's lives in not accompanied by an expression of parental love and affection to their kids. Their children are supposed to follow their instructions to the end without asking questions. Failure to follow the parents' instructions is usually accompanied by the punishment, which at times can be corporal. They should obey and show respect to their parents' power. In this case, the relationship between parents and their children is not usually the best as the children may grow to fear their parents. Children are not given the freedom to express their opinions to their parents, like in an authoritative parenting style.

Children raised by authoritarian parents are more like to be antisocial as children and also when they grow up. That is because these children's parents do not teach them the necessary social skills needed for healthy relations. Children brought up by authoritarian parenting do not are more likely to have anxiety issues leading to depression. According to Wilhelm et al. (2), depression can lead to antisocial behaviors both in adults and in children. Authoritarian parents do not offer emotional and mental support to their children. All children must get intellectual help from their parents for them to develop emotionally. Lack of emotional support during child development is a significant cause of depression.

Authoritarian parents use fear to control their children's behavior. Therefore, children who have experienced authoritarian parenting tend to fear to have a secure emotional attachment. The parent-child relationship is the first relationship experience for the children; it has a significant impact on the child's subsequent relationship. So if this experience turns out to be harmful to the child, the child may forever have relationship problems. The children of authoritarian parents are less trusting compared to those familiar with authoritative parenting. The lack of trust in these children may be explained by the fact that their parents, whom they trusted, reciprocated the trust with fear (Olutope et al. 7). Trust is a very significant factor when creating an emotional attachment, whether it is a romantic relationship, family or friendship.

Adults brought up by authoritarian parenting have been found to have less self-esteem. This is because their parent never gave them the freedom to make decisions on their own. Their duty was following their parents' instructions without their parenting considering their opinions. As such, when they grow up, they will have the mentality that they are not worthy of anyone's love; thus, they avoid emotional attachments. Adults who feel that their parents were not there for them emotionally are less likely to have good adult relations.

Permissive Parenting Style

Permissive parenting style characterized by great affection to their children but deficient levels of demandingness from the parents. In this case, the children are given the freedom to make their own decisions without much supervision from their parents. The children raised by permissive parents the high responsiveness nature of these types of parents means that they understand their children's emotions better. However, high demandingness, which is low in permissive parenting, is also associated with better emotional support from the parents. Therefore, the low levels of demandingness from the parents may invalidate the advantage brought about by high responsiveness (Cameron et al. 4).

Like in authoritative parenting, children whose parents used the permissive parenting style are likely to have proper emotional attachments when they grow to adulthood. That is because both authoritative and permissive parents help their children in emotional development during their childhood. Thus these children can form healthy emotional attachments quickly. However, as a result of not having the necessary parental control, children of permissive parents are self-centered and selfish. They expect others to help them as their parents did and blame others for their failures, and this affects their subsequent emotional attachments negatively.

Neglectful Parenting Style

Neglectful parenting is associated with low responsiveness and low demandingness from the parents. Such parents are not there for their children emotionally and physically, and as a result of their neglect, their children's emotional development is...