Is A Strict Parenting Style Right For Your Family?

Every parent wants to do the best they can for their kids. We all want to make sure that our children grow up to be successful adults and are happy with the life they have made with the tools that we have given them throughout their childhood. There are many ways that parents can improve their parenting skills so they are more effective for their children.  A highly successful but maybe non-traditional way is to take online parenting classes. These classes will not take much time but it will give you the education you need to become the type of parent that you want to become.

Many parents today feel that the level of their child’s success is a direct correlation to how good of a parent they are.  They feel that the number of trophies their children win, the amount of A’s on the report card or the college they get into is directly based on how effective their parenting style is. However, many parents today seem to take the emphasis on success too far. Their child may be punished for not succeeding or they may simply ignore accomplishments that are not up to expectations, without giving any reassurance that they did a good job. This type of parenting is considered Authoritarian parenting. In this type of parenting, the parent puts all focus on the success of the child, creating strict guidelines and rules that create a stringent atmosphere. 

Authoritarian parenting is often effective in the long-run with the success rates of the child if success is measured by which college the child goes to or how high paying their career turns out to be. However, children raised in this environment will often have low self-esteem and trouble making their own decisions because their parents always made them for them.  Therefore, if you measure true success based on the person’s happiness and social well being, the statistics are different. The adult child of this strict and traditional style will likely have a successful career, but they will also rarely have a good and balanced social life with a significant other or good friends since they have spent their entire life just striving to please their parents. This style of parenting is popular in the Asian world, enforcing more work, less play and high goals.  In a recent NYT bestselling book called Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, the author discusses how her daughter was to practice piano without any sort of break for water or the bathroom until the piece was played perfectly.  

A more balanced approach to parenting is what is called the Authoritative style of parenting which combines the love and support that the child needs with the strict rules and expectation for success that is found in the Authoritarian parenting style. In this style, the child is still given support and love, even when they fail. This style has the same basic elements that Authoritarian parenting has but without the negative long-term effects. Those children who were brought up in an Authoritative parenting household are typically found to be successful adults with healthy social lives and higher self-esteem and self-worth.

Many parents feel that only "bad" parents take parenting classes but this is not the case. All parents should attend parenting classes so they can learn new techniques and hear stories about what works and what does not work when raising kids.  The world is constantly changing and so is how different parenting styles affect the way the child is brought up.  Attending online parenting classes gives good parents the tools they need to become even more effective and to create a healthy, successful home environment.