Introduction
Raising a child could be a big task for many families in the modern environment and society. This is because it entails various conditions and situation that are sometimes difficult to abide by. Many households find their children going astray as they engage in undesired activities simply because of lack of proper mentorship by their parents. Furthermore, today’s parenting styles face severe challenges compared to those of our forefathers and past generation. Day by day, toughest dilemmas arise. This is due to the pace at which the modern environment evolves, characterized by new, difficult situations contrary to the children’s expectation by their families (Cline et al 2001). It is evident that parents lack an exact understanding of the new environment to which the children are going to inhabit. Going by the ancient rule of parenting, parents therefore completely misses out on the point in most cases. Instead of empowering their siblings to be independent enough to take the best and right decisions for their lives, parents expose their children to a dictatorial atmosphere. This has an adverse effect of the general development of the modern child. This paper provides an overview of the ‘perfect imbalance’ as the main problem of parenting in the modern society. The paper will focus on identifying the cause, effects and the appropriate solution to the perfect imbalance in growth and development of a child in the modern environment.
Statement of the problem
The truth must be told. Due to unavoidable circumstances, the modern family unit does not put much focus to effectively guiding their children for their future endeavors. Statistics show that the role of the family heads, that is, the father and mother, has increasingly changed. Parents get involved much in working around the clock to raise and acquire status in their living standards. This is due to the adverse challenges associated with modernity. They include the skyrocketing inflation and ever rising costs of products and basic needs. This condition makes parents make extra effort to earn extra income to cater for these basic essentials of living. During this process, the welfare of the child is completely neglected (Harwood et al., 2008). This pattern has continued affecting the modern child in which they grow as dependant kind of persons, ending up being destroyed in their entire life span.
Perfect imbalance is therefore a monster facing the family today. It refers to the tendency of parents trying to focus more on addressing the economical challenges at the same time forgetting their role in children rearing. They take little no time at all in paying attention to their children; guide them appropriately in installing good moral values and all credentials of an all rounded human beings. As a result, parents get frustrated by seeing their kids in a horrible situation at later stages of their lives. During that time, the situations are out of parents’ control. Thus they find unnecessary alternatives to save the situation. These include purchasing expensive gifts and so forth. However such solutions have only temporary effect. Children in such like families lack the skill to earn something for themselves since everything they needed was well provided for. Due to this imbalance of the modern parenting, children end up dormant and unproductive people, affecting their lives and the society in general.
Context of the problem
The intensity of perfect imbalance remains a debatable concern. Having seen the diverse effects of perfect imbalance in parenting, it becomes each and everybody’s responsibility to take care of well being of our children. Several ethical styles of parenting have been suggested by psychologists. At the beginning of the 17th century onwards, philosophers wrote child rearing influential books. These include the book entitled “some thoughts of concerning education” by John Locke. The book focuses on the importance of the early experiences of child’s physical development. Jean Rousseau, another philosopher of the time proposed less book activity and more interaction in child’s early education. On the other hand, Jean Piaget, with his cognitive development theory explained how children perceive and reason about their environment. Piaget structured the cognitive theory to explain different phenomena expressed by children at distinctive ages of their physical growth and development. These stages include: sensory motor, preoperational, followed by concrete operational and then the formal operational stage. Another child developmental psychologist, Erik Erikson added on Piaget suggestions. He brought the concerns of the balance between two conflicting forces in the early development of a child. The arguments by these and other philosophers bring the background and significance of this topic. Parents’ primary duty should be caring for the welfare of their kids’ development rather than concentrating more on matters of life challenges. Caring for children is caring for the generation to come. At every stage of development, a child has to be offered an opportunity to utilize every aspect of living entitled to the particular stage. Bringing the balance of adequate care for such children enables them become complete and responsible individuals, hence a responsible future generation.
Research questions
This research is guided by the concern of the effects of perfect imbalance in parenting. It aims at providing parents with the necessary knowledge to understanding their children better. Are parents unaware of the various parenting style that could curb the perfect imbalance of parenting? Even if they are, in some way, are they knowledgeable enough to put such styles and practices into actual and real life situation? These are the questions that every parent should ask themselves. In trying to address the same, the following this paper takes a close analysis on the following parenting style as discussed bellow.
Authoritative parenting, also known as assertive democratic parenting is a balanced style characterized with the expectations of maturity (Wynn, 2008). It is a more child centered approach that upholds the integrity of both parties, that is, parents and children. In this approach, children are offered an appropriate guide to find, solve problems and look at the world by themselves. Parents identify a particular routine that balances their role in raring to effectively have an impact to their children’s endeavors. They allow children to freely interact with the environment and make decisions based on their own reasoning. The result of this style is that, children develop to be responsible, self reliant, and peoples of high integrity.
Authoritarian parenting also referred to as totalitarian or strict parenting is an approach where a parent expects and demands a lot but is not responsive enough to their well being. Parents form rules and do everything at their disposal to ensure that children comply with their regulations. Open dialogue in minimal and at most time, children get exposed to heavy physical punishment when they make mistakes (Meadows, 2004). The rules set are not well generated and lack basis and reasoning. Children’ needs are meet very low response from parents as they are expected to respect their status and not argue about any other thing. This type of parenting nurtures a less responsible, non-social and low competent individuals. Indulgent parenting is a non directive, lenient approach. It is also known as permissive parenting characterized by very few children expectations. Parents get much involved in taking care of their children welfare but never put demands on them. They accept everything at the wish of the kids. This approach brings about spoilt individuals and a less responsible generation. Statistics have shown that individuals nurtured from this king of parenting engage more in misconduct behaviors and other crimes. The last approach is known as neglectful parenting. Parents in this approach are neither responsive nor demanding. They generally do not hand on the wellbeing of their children. No limit is set on doing anything; hence children do as they wish without a response from their parents. As a result, children develop a mature status at an early age. They become independent, think and reason about things as they face the world by themselves. More so, they develop a lack emotional and social contact their environment throughout their life span.
Significance of this topic/problem
Summary/Conclusion
In conclusion, it came to the limelight that nurturing a child needs extra dedicative efforts than what in commonly perceived by most parents. Parents who lack an appropriate style of raising their children are often hit by the consequences of their indecisiveness. The types and style of parenting discussed in this paper could therefore be of much help to such parents. To add on, more research on other causes and effects could be done to build on this. This will enable a parent get a chance to understand the importance of their care to kids (Kristal, 2005). Therefore, they will be more responsible in the process of nurturing their children hence contributing to an organized and moral society. The paper further recommends on an analysis of other parenting styles such as attachment parenting and concerted cultivation types. This would provide more knowledge to parents hence enabling them combine and use necessary methods to eliminate the aspect of perfect imbalance on parenting. On summary, this paper has already provided a benchmark of the overview of the parenting situation in the modern society. The discussions on authoritative, totalitarian, permissive and uninvolved parenting styles prove an alternative for parents. However, there is no limit into which further research could critically look into this topic and provide more alternatives for the benefit of the society at large.
References
Cline, F. & Fay, J. (2001). Parenting with love and logic. Colorado Springs, CO: Piñon Press.
Harwood, R., Miller, S. & Vasta, R. (2008). Child psychology. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Kristal, J. (2005). The temperament perspective. New York: Paul H. Brookes Pub. Co..
Meadows, S. (2004). Parenting behaviour and children's cognitive development. Hove: Psychology Press.
Wynn, C. (2008). Parenting styles among substance & non substance abusing mothers. Saarbrücken, Germany: VDM Verlag Dr. Müller.
