1. Approaches to Parenting Chapter 3

2. What Influences Parenting?

3.  Personal Influences on Parenting  Personality  Your special blend of intellectual, emotional, and social traits.  A parent’s personality has strong impact of children.  Positive and negative  Some can hurt their child.  Temper  Cold and Distant  You can change bad traits.

4.  Feelings About Children  Do you want children?  Beliefs about children and childhood influence the environment you create  Your own memories of growing up will help you decide these and similar issues.  Parenting Values  What values are more important?  Money  Quality  Education  Health

5.  Parenting Goals  Goal: a conscious target that requires planning and effort to reach.  Having your child go to college.  Parents who don’t set goals my drift.

6.  Outside Influences On Parenting  Families and Culture  The way people live.  Location  Religions  Ethnic heritage  The food you eat and the words you speak.

7.  Economic Conditions  Two levels  Individual  The strain of making financial ends meet can be hard on a parent.  Less time to spend with children and caring for the home.  Money is not the key to happiness, but it does offer security and opportunity!  Social  Economic changes can affect a family’s finances.

8.  Social Policies  Following rules  Protective laws are enacted to insure that parents live up to their responsibilities.  Welfare  Domestic relations  Violence  Child abuse  Divorce  Adoption  Care care

9.  Changing Gender Roles  Old Days  Mothers provided daily child care.  Fathers earned the family’s income.  Now  Both parents work  They both share house work and child care responsibilities.

10.  Theories  Theories deal with different areas of development.  Child development authorities use developmental theory- a combination of several theories- to explain children’s behavior.

11.  Ages and Stages  Ages is the length of a child’s life at a given point in time.  Stages is the periods of development that children go through as they mature.  Infant = Birth to 1  Toddler = 1-3  Preschooler = 3-5  School-Age = 5-Puberty  Adolescent = Puberty – Adulthood

12. Developing a Parenting Style

13.  Different Parenting Styles  Authoritarian  Strong leaders  Make most decisions concerning their children  Believe in setting certain standards for behavior and expect children to meet them.  How children feel:  Secure  Know what is allowed and is not

14.  Democratic  Believes that children deserve a say in matters that affect them.  Children have a voice in making rules and deciding the penalty.  Look at individual circumstances.  Children make their own mistakes and learn from them.  Learn independence  Can make decisions easily.

15.  Permissive  Allows children the greatest freedom of the three types.  Children get all the decision making responsibility they can handle with guidance and protection when needed.  Few rules  Fewer penalties  Children tend to develop and rely on their own abilities

16.  Making Parenting Styles Work  Choose a style that feels right for you.  Do what makes you comfortable.  Consider the child’s personality.  Use each style in moderation.  Identify areas where two parents’ style conflict.

17.  Blending Styles  Parents adapt their actions to the situation.  Ages  Being Predictable  Children need to know what to expect from parents.  They learn to advantage of the situation.