Parenthood- Parenting Styles -Psychology

After watching Parenthood, a movie about a family of siblings and their children, I was shown all three of the examples of parenting styles, each of these parents have very different ways of raising their children. The three types of parenting styles include democratic parenting, dictatorial parenting, and permissive parenting.The democratic parenting style is where a parent is laid back, but also has general rules and will enforce more strict rules if necessary, these parents are both demanding and responsive. The dictatorial parenting style is a parent who has many rules and is very restrictive, most everything is very structured. The last parenting style is permissive, the permissive parenting style is really when the child is in charge, and this parent rarely uses discipline just to avoid any confrontation. I will be describing these three different parenting styles with three different families, one of these families being my own. In my opinion al parenting styles are effective on the children who they are being used on, but I personally think the most effective of them is the democratic parenting style.
The first family I will be analyzing is parents Susan and Nathan and there three year old daughter Patty. Susan is the third daughter of the Buckham family, and both Susan and her husband Nathan have set standards way too high to expect from there little girl, although both of these parents do have high standards, Nathans expectations on Patty is too much, the time spent in attempt to reach these expectations starts affecting his marriage with Susan. After analyzing this family, I definitely saw that Susan and Nathan demonstrate the dictatorial parenting style. I believe that Susan and Nathan use the dictatorial parenting style because in the film its demonstrated multiple different times. One of these examples being when this family was first introduced in the movie, before showing patty, Nathan is shown lecturing someone about their capability of education for the future, personally I was assuming that he was talking to a teenager but once once they reveal Patty, and I see a three year old little girl, I couldn’t understand how he was expecting her to understand. Another example was at a family get together, while all the cousins are playing together like most kids do, Nathan is isolating himself with Patty, practicing square root equations, which most parents aren’t even worried about their kids knowing at the age of three. One last example is when Nathan is teaching his daughter karate, in result Patty is “studying eastern philosophy”. These examples are basically an everyday orderly thing, Although Nathan just wants the best for his daughter, what he is doing isn’t even the least bit necessary, and his strict parenting is putting a lot of pressure on Patty and she will eventually suffer from it. At Patty’s age she should be able to live freely, and not be forced to learn, eventually she will learn, but right now she is just too young. While forcing patty to learn, Nathan is keeping her isolated from the world full of other children, which has made Patty different from the other children, just as Nathan is to other adults. These examples clearly demonstrate the Dictatorial parenting style and how it has affected Patty. At three years old, no child needs to be forced to absorb and learn unnecessary things, when they have a whole life ahead of them.
The second family I will be analyzing is a divorced single mother Helen and her two children Julie and Gary. Helen is a bank manager, who was divorced and abandoned by the father of her children. In this film, it’s clear that Helen demonstrates the permissive parenting style. Both Julie and Gary make trouble, and have no respect for their mother. Julie wants to get married to her boyfriend Todd, who Helen doesn’t like at all, and Gary is experiencing a sexual problem but doesn’t feel comfortable talking to his mom about it. From what I see, both Julie and Gary lack a personal connection with their mother. In this film there are multiple different examples how Helen demonstrates the permissive parenting style. One of these examples is when Julie tried running away from home, Helen reacted by threatening her that if Julie ran away she would never let Julie in the house again, but as soon as Julie walked out of the door she quickly changes her attitude about the situation and lets Julie know that she is welcome home any time, basically giving Julie permission to walk all over her. Another example of this parenting style is when Gary goes to leave the house with a brown paper bag and when Helen questions him about what’s in the bag, Gary ignores her, and continues to walk out of the house. Because Helen practices this parenting style with Julie and Gary, they don’t find it necessary to have any respect for her, and it’s a serious problem once any parent loses respect from their children. Although they are a family, they lack the traits of warmth and nurturance, everyone in this household isolates themselves from each other, and they really never do anything as a family. Due to the lack of relationships, Gary craves attention from some type of male figure, and because he can’t get that attention from his mom, he becomes angry and antisocial. Julie went behind her mother’s back and got married to her boyfriend Todd, she isn’t willing to be without Todd, and so Helen feeds into this and allows Todd to live in her house as long as they obey the rules and Julie goes to high school. In this film, Helen clearly demonstrates the permissive parenting style.
One last family I will be analyzing is my own; my family consists of my parents Kevin and Melissa, and their five children, which includes Jocelyn, Evin, Jordan, Meadow, and me. I feel like my parents definitely use the democratic parenting style because they have very simple, general rules that they expect us to follow, these rules can be adjusted, but if we break those rules they have no problems enforcing them just a fast to make them stricter. For example, I wanted to go to a concert, this concert didn’t end till 11 o’clock at the earliest, and my curfew is 10:30, obviously this was a conflict, but I talked to my parents and they made a deal and told me I need to be home by 12, but to call and check in with them at 11:00, before agreeing to this they made sure I was aware that they don’t have to allow me to stay out , and that if I come in the house later then 12, then my original curfew will be changed to 8 o’clock. I was obviously happy and I was going to be home by 12 because my parents trusted me and I wouldn’t want to blow it, also because this will show them they can trust me and allow them to be more lenient in the future. Due to the way my parents raise me I feel like it makes my relationship with them better in a whole bunch of different ways, because we can always have fun as a family, I always know I can talk to them and feel comfortable. I also feel like I can have fun, but I know when to much is. In the future I would want to raise my children the same way my parents did so I could have the same good relationship with my children as I did with my parents.
After watching the movie Parenthood, I took the time to analyze the three different parenting styles, the Democratic style, the Permissive style, and the Dictatorial style, and all three of these results in some effect on the children who these styles are being used on. The parenting style which I believe is the most affective is the democratic parenting style, which in the text above I used my own family as an example. I believe this is the most effective parenting style because my parents use this style and although they are firm, they’re not so intrusive and restrictive. Personally I feel like I have a better relationship with my parents due to the democratic parenting style because the way my parents approach situations generally or specifically are in a way to where I will be more responsive, and the problem could be solved in a reasonable way as to if they used a more dictatorial parenting style, the outcome would most likely not be the same. In my opinion I believe parenting styles have more of an effect on how children develop, then the genetics from the child itself. We cannot inherit personalities, so parenting styles is a major factor that effect personality development, not genes. This brings in the debate of nurture vs. nature. I believe that the way a parent reacts and responds to their children highly affects the development of a child. The dictatorial parenting style is very restrictive and demanding, never giving a child to think for themselves, these children are very obedient, but are most likely to have very low self-esteem and low social skills because they lack in warmth and nurturance needed from a parent to come out of there shell. The democratic parenting style is demanding and responsive; the environment is loving, caring, and supportive, but also has moderate discipline, these parents communicate with their children in an approach that is responsive building social skills to interact with others, and with support the democratic parent allows the child to think for themselves, guiding them on a path to become independent. The permissive parenting style lacks in any discipline, support, warmth and or love, resulting negatively on a child’s development because the parents rarely use discipline because they have very low expectations of mature and self-control, these children don’t respond well to authority figure and crave the attention they never had. In conclusion, genetics may have some impact in the development of a child, I believe that parenting styles definitely have a greater impact on the development of a child.