Strict parents do not give room for negotiation with their children.Once they have decided on something it is done. Imagine the beginning of summer vacation, you miss one curfew and the rest of your summer you are punished and cannot leave your house. Being teenagers we have absolutely no clue what it’s like to be a parent, it is hard to determine whether rules like this help or hurt a child. In today’s society a question arises whether it is good or bad to be a strict parent and what does it mean to be strict? In my opinion, I believe strict parenting means one having tight control or limits on what their child is or is not allowed to do. One must conform, or behave in a certain way demanding expectations, while obeying the rules and principles that are put in place. Strict parenting can be unreasonable, and put unrealistic demands on a child. Being a strict parent also causes long term mental and emotional effects on a child. By not giving a child the opportunity to personalize self-discipline and responsibility, often times can cause behavior problems, depression, anger and becoming more rebellious.
Some parents are just strict simply because their parents were also strict. All parents are different, and each and every one of them has different reasons to how they treat their children. It is hard to understand why some parents are more strict than others. What one person may see as strict parenting may be seen completely different to someone else. A parent’s job is to raise a child, educate them, and love them in order to prepare them for life. Parents fail to understand that the children are different and hence should be treated differently. Some parents are more stern than others and may even take parenting to the extreme by the way they treat their children. The goal of most strict parents it to protect their child, although it seems as if they are shielding them from reality. Since the world is changing rapidly, parents are trying in any way possible to protect their child from the many pitfalls of life, they tend to be much overprotective. They try to prevent them from inheriting any bad habits they may have had in order to keep them from experiencing the same hardships. Parents believe strict parenting produces better-behaved children. But does it?
Research studies show that strict parenting produces children with lower self esteem and low self worth who act out more frequently, behave worse than other kids, get into more trouble and therefore, punished more (Rachel Gillett, “Science Says Parents of Successful Kids Have These 13 Things in Common). Sometimes parents think if they make the rules tougher this will maintain the discipline and make a child more responsible. Harsh limits control behavior temporarily, but do not help the child achieve and learn how to set his or her own limits and take responsibility for themselves. Strict parenting actually creates behavior problems in children. Children learn what they live, so they do what they see, yelling, force, if they fear you, this is like bullying. If they are raised with punitive discipline, they will be angry and depressed and more rebellious. If they learn to obey the parent and not think for themselves, they will dodge responsibility.
This research explains the positive and negative outcomes on a child from having strict parents. The strictness of the parents increases the chance of a child to life. When a teenager cannot do the things that their friends are doing, they feel dependent upon on their parents and that is not supposed to happen like that. “Many studies have suggested that positive dimensions of parenting such as warmth, sensitivity, and responsiveness have relatively high stability based on both parental self-report. However strict parenting in some studies has identified a lack of stability in observed sensitivity, decreases in responsivity to child play, and declines in positive parenting”. Strict parenting can cause anger and depression in the child's life. This study showed that parents who invade their children's privacy risk their offspring, emotionally scarred for life. It can affect basic life attitudes not knowing what they like and don’t like, they lack trusting in people, and don’t know how to listen to their instinct.
Strict parenting affects the children mentally and also sometimes physically. The results maybe long term and may affect someone throughout his life. The article explains how a child’s behavior may change by stating, “Reports of child behavior problems may reflect two phenomena: the actual child's behaviors and the perceptions of adults who report on those behaviors (Weisz et al., 1988). Frequently, in both clinical practice and research, one's understanding of child psychopathology is filtered through caregivers’ reports of child problems.” If you are too stern and controlling, you may be hurting the child's behavior. I strongly believe that parents can affect the way the child behaves as a human being especially by abusing them. In this study, it describes how a child's behavior can change just by the parent’s behavior by the way that they carry themselves. “In their study of behavior problems among children who were physically abused and/or witnessed spousal abuse, there was wide variation in the reports provided by victimized mothers, perpetrating fathers, and self-reports provided by child victims and witnesses.” Children of strict parenting may consider their parents aggressive and develop contact or noncontact aggression behaviors.
Dr. Andrea Bonior describes how she was raised and the effect it had on her life for a period of time, and how she eventually overcame her past and is in a much happier place. She describes how her parents were always hard on her on her academic performance. Whenever she brought the report cards home the parents never appreciated even if she had improved. Her father could start arguments blaming her mother for the poor performance of the child. She was the eldest daughter and she was being told that she must set good examples to the other siblings. Sometime she would be beaten and even sleep hungry. She grew up believing that she is not good in academics like her father. This affected her so much and she could not even play like the other children in the school, she was a dull child. While parents fill their kids brains with unrealistic goals they sometimes don’t understand the best ways to motivate them, which can put a great amount of anxiety and stress on a child, which usually results in kids never achieving the goals their parents put forth for them. A difficult upbringing is not something that can be easily forgotten. Past memories and experiences of how you were raised will always stick around in the back of your head no matter how hard you try. Although children no longer have to listen to their parents after reaching adulthood, their voices are still glued to their brains. This can lead to a number of mental and psychological problems that could lead to health risks and bad behavior.
Strict parenting can cause depression in children. But how do you know for sure depression can cause strict parenting? They believe that children can only be corrected through them being strict. Strict parents are not there to help cope with their children, and manage those difficulties that convey them to act this way. “A second potential source of negative self-relevant information for children is feedback from parents. Research has shown that children internalize standards and expectations learned through their parents and carry them forward into other relationships and settings. Chronic and unmitigated negative feedback from parents about a child’s abilities, performance, appearance, behavior, and personality can be internalized by the child and may facilitate the development of the cognitive diathesis for depression” (Cole). pragmatic effort holds such studies. For example, non-supportive parenting is sconnected to the appearance of adverse cognitition approaches and hightened depression indications such as low self worth (Lewinsohn et al.,1994;Mezulis,Hyde,"Abramson,2006;Rapee,1997) Furthermore, literature studies demonstrate that elevated levels of parental refusal are associated to depressive cognitions and internalizing symptom such as as bad moods,the child gets angry faster and looking sad at all times. I believe that children can feel left out and they are trying to help themselves overcome their lesser desires in life. Children with strict parenting can feel unwanted and weak, insecure about themselves as a person, and feel unworthy of acceptance in life.
Although children that are victim to strict parenting often times end up rebellious along with a negative outlook on life,once they get their freedom they do all the things that they were unable to do while with their parents,these are the youths that engage in all sorts of evil. Other kids however grow up to be extremely successful adults excelling in life de to their strict parents. Having parents who demand a lot from you can work out as long as their child is also determined and self motivated to achieve great things. It might take most of the fun out of being a kid, but on the other hand it can teach respect and maturity at a very young age.
Children who are raised in a strict household aren’t the only ones who are at risk. This behavior of strict parenting is likely to be transferred to generations to come. Strict parenting has its own positive and negative effects on a child. With all the research done on this subject matter, strict parenting is not effective in producing better-behaved children, in fact, I believe it sabotages everything positive that you try to do as a parent. In the end, not matter how a child is raised, they should be able to gain knowledge and positive character traits along the way that will help them succeed in life. Parents should develop other problem solving skills rather than just being strict.
Works Cited
Cole, David A.1, et al. "Peer Victimization and Harsh Parenting Predict Cognitive Diatheses for
Depression in Children and Adolescents." Journal of Clinical Child " Adolescent
Psychology, vol. 45, no. 5, Sep/Oct2016, pp. 668-680. EBSCOhost,
doi:10.1080/15374416.2015.1004679.
Gillett, Rachel. “Science Says Parents of Successful Kids Have These 13 Things in Common.”
Business Insider, Business Insider, 6 May 2016, www.businessinsider.com/how-parents-set-their-kids-up-for-success-2016-4.
Lau, Anna S., et al. "Abusive Parents’ Reports of Child Behavior Problems: Relationship to
Observed Parent-Child Interactions." Child Abuse " Neglect, vol. 30, no. 6, June 2006, pp. 639-655. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1016/j.chiabu.2005.11.009.
Liu, Freda F. Chinese American Adolescents' Cultural Frameworks for Understanding Parenting. N.p., 2011.pp.8-10. Print.
Mary Haskett. "Three-Year Trajectories of Parenting Behaviors among
Physically Abusive Parents and Their Link to Child Adjustment." Child " Youth Care Forum, vol. 44, no. 5, Oct. 2015, pp. 613-633. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1007/s10566-014 Works Cited
