As the years go by, expecting more and more from children, parents are torn in the middle between strictness and understanding. Two popular methods of raising children are authoritative and gentle, though both can be analyzed under positive psychology. Positive psychology, therefore, has important implications regarding how the above parenting styles enhance the well-being and psychological growth of children.
Here in this blog, we can discuss the origins of authoritative and gentle parenting, and how both relate to the psychology of positivity. If you want to learn how to parent in a way that supports healthy emotional development, but the child still needs to learn to respect boundaries, or if you want to find ways to encourage the child to make connections without rewards and punishments, this article will be helpful, as it will compare these two approaches.
Difference between Authoritative and gently parenting:
Authoritative parenting:
Authoritative parenting is characterized by high demands and a high level of warmth or sensitivity. Yes, these parents have high expectations for their children and are not shy to discipline them for not meeting or failing to meet those expectations. Still, they also provide direction and assistance for their children to make something out of themselves. the parents are caring, loving, supportive, firm, with plenty of affection, and respect but also rules and sometimes, punishment. In contrast to demanding or aggressive parenting styles, incoming rotations often use positive ways of correcting children, such as offering rewards. Authoritative parents are role models and do such things as the child is expected to do. As such, their kids will end up emulating the same, and display the same behaviors in their interactions with other people. They also enable children to know what is expected from them, and the consequences to expect from their actions.
These parents are likely to score higher in terms of the aspects of emotional understanding and emotional self-regulation. They also grow with their children in that they learn how to control their anger and also learn how to read people.
Gently parenting:
Gentle parenting is a practice that seeks to produce babies, toddlers, and children who are self-assured, assertive, and happy individuals who have been raised with consideration of feelings, boundary setting, and understanding. This approach pays special regard to the age propriety of all that is anticipated in the day.
Most of the traditional practices of parenting employ incentives and penalties or rewards and punishments. For instance, when a child is good he or she is rewarded or given a token such as a candy. They may be told to sit on a chair or corner for a while or they may be spanked although this is discouraged by most experts.
Rather, gentle parenting discourages the use of incentives and sanctions that can make the child fall in line. Rather, it assists a child to be more alert on the kind of behavior he or she has been displaying and why the change of such behavior should be effected.
According to Dr. Estrella, gentle parenting is not very much different from an ideal baseball coach. Suppose you are preparing to go to work, while your child just hates wearing shoes, and he starts crying unprecedentedly. You are concerned with being late and also with getting frustrated.
In conventional child-rearing, you might shout at your child, ordering the child to stop being silly and put on the shoes. This approach is negative and it is centered on your frustration. It may prevent it in the shortest term, but the child will be obedient only because he/she is afraid of punishment.
“‘They know they are doing the wrong thing,’ kids don’t understand that, what they are doing wrong; they just stop because they get scared,” Dr. Estrella. Continuing without teaching them the reasons for change they don’t understand why change has to be made.
Give it a gentle parenting style and you will remain composed all the while establishing boundaries beforehand. Instead of shouting, one might bend down to the child’s eye level, and in a soft voice say to him or her, ‘It is important that we leave at this time, and when I am ready to go, I expect you to wear your shoes or be ready otherwise we will be late and that makes me angry.
Conclusion:
While authoritarian and permissive styles of parenting provide useful insights into child nurturing and development in terms of emotional, psychological, and behavioral health. The authoritative parenting style gives children a specific set of guidelines they can follow but at the same time makes them feel cared about and secure. Whereas, gentle parenting involves comforting and reasoning with the child whereby they learn about their feelings and actions without being punished.
When analysed in the light of positive psychology both the styles make a lot of sense. Authoritative parenting is similar to positive discipline; it fosters the emotional development of the child by providing structure and using positive language. It can be seen that gentle parenting aligns well with positive psychology, as instead of attempting to eliminate all negative emotions, children are taught how to deal with them positively and constructively.
In conclusion, it may be possible that the choice between these two types of parenting may depend on family circumstances but both styles affirm the need to develop a child fully and properly. In this way, using the positive psychology paradigm, parents can build an optimal environment for their children to grow into the best version of themselves.
