1. The way a parent raises a child, determines the kind of person they grow up to be. In as much as I don’t have children of my own, I believe that being a parent involves combining discipline with friendship when it comes to your child. According to me, the theory that so well involves these two aspects and that I will personally use, is the Diana Baumrind’s theory on parenting styles. It looks at the aspect of the parent being warm and supportive of their children by ensuring that they are able to meet their needs, guide them, and help them grow into responsible individuals. It also looks at the parent’s efforts to ensure that the children are disciplined and well integrated into the community.
2. My parenting style is definitely going to be an Authoritative type. Just like my parents, I believe this child-centered form of parenting produces great results. It enables the parent to understand the feelings of the child and in turn teach them on how to control these feelings and impulses. This parenting style works because it allows the parent to make reasonable demands, which are characterized by high responsiveness. The duties of such a parent include giving the child adequate support, warmth, and love, along with proper limits and methods of discipline that are fair. I would prefer this method of parenting because the outcome is children who are confident, happy, and good at self-regulation.
3. Punishment occurs when a negative consequence is introduced after a particular behavior occurs with the intention to decrease the behavior rate as it gradually disappears. Discipline on the other hand is the discouraging of unwanted behavior by teaching the correct behavior. Looking at the differences between the two, Discipline is the most effective(Larzelere, Cox, & Mandara, 2013) because even if punishment can actually lead to the decrease of a behavior it doesn’t nurture the correct behavior. In addition to that, if the child being punished no longer finds it unpleasant the punishment fails to be effective. I personally would practice discipline on my child if I had one because through acts like reinforcement, the child gets to learn what acceptable and unacceptable behavior is and this good behavior can be nurtured easily.
REFERENCES
Larzelere, R. E., Cox, R. B. J., & Mandara, J. (2013). Responding to misbehavior in young children: How authoritative parents enhance reasoning with firm control. In Authoritative parenting: Synthesizing nurturance and discipline for optimal child development. (pp. 89–111). http://doi.org/10.1037/13948-005
