Back in May of this year, I finished the report on parenting research that I had completed for my master’s degree, which I now consider Lightward Bound’s (LWB) research. It was a study of nine parents in Tooele County (more specifically, they were all from Tooele City) to assess their thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes about children, raising children, and learning how to do it. As a sample of parents, it was very small. It certainly doesn’t represent all parents in the county. However, there are still some lessons from the research that can contribute positively to parents who are willing to consider new information in the research that they hadn’t previously thought of. Beginning a process of helping people in Tooele County to improve as parents was the goal of this study. Future parenting research will uncover more valuable insights.
These parenting lessons revealed by the research are drawn from both a review of many previous studies by others and information provided by the parents who participated in LWB’s study. Here are a few important lessons that I have identified from this research.
Lesson 1: Authoritative parenting style has been shown by many studies to lead to better outcomes for children than other parenting styles that have been studied. Four main styles that have been studied are authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, and neglectful styles.
Authoritative parenting involves a combination of the following elements: a supportive relationship between parents and the child, setting clear boundaries for the child, granting a degree of autonomy for the child to make his/her own choices, monitoring the child’s activities, and enforcing boundaries through appropriate positive or negative consequences.
Many studies have shown that each of the other parenting styles are associated with increased rates of negative outcomes for children in one or more of these areas: depression, anxiety, delinquency, and substance abuse. Some studies have identified additional undesirable outcomes.
Lesson 2: All nine of the parents that participated in LWB’s Tooele study displayed a positive view of children and seemed interested in putting forth effort to be effective parents. There was plenty of evidence that they cared very much about the well-being of their children, not only physically, but also emotionally.
This sort of attitude that the parents appeared to possess is, to me, an excellent foundation for raising healthy, productive, and secure children. I believe valuing children and having an interest in their well-being provide an essential foundation for parents to do the best job of raising children.
Lesson 3: The parents who participated in the Tooele study expressed a sense of boundaries they would not cross as parents in dealing with their children. Many of the boundaries expressed related to disciplining children.
Below are a few limits or boundaries that I recommend for parents:
- Undue pain or discomfort inflicted on a child has no place in raising good children
- Harsh treatment of children has been found in studies to be associated with negative outcomes down the road
- Psychological manipulation of children can be as harmful as physical hurts
- Studies have shown that “psychological control” is also associated with increased negative outcomes for children
- Examples of this behavior include: using parent-as-victim guilt to manipulate child behavior, fostering a feeling of shame for the child’s behavior, lying to a child to gain compliance, etc.
- Maintain a good balance of appropriate closeness with children (i.e. appropriate physical affection, conversations, etc.)
Lesson 4: Too often parents believe their own upbringing and observations about raising children provided them enough knowledge to do a good job as parents. There is a lot of valuable research on parenting that some parents refuse to seek out. A few of the parents in the Tooele study seemed reluctant to adjust their parenting approach based on research evidence. Other studies have found similar reactions of parents to outside information (beyond their own natural process of gaining information).
Ideally, parents would seek out the best parenting advice and information, rather than solely going on their own observations and impressions. There is much good information available that would improve outcomes for children in many cases.
It’s important to realize that our actions toward children may have some visible, immediate effects AND some imperceptible, long-term effects. Research on parenting can help us understand the less-perceptible, long-term effects. These long-term effects may have greater consequences for children when they become adults than the immediate, visible effects. These effects can subsequently contribute to what kind of culture we will live in.
If you’re a parent, please seek out the best, most sound information on good parenting you can find. Be open to change for the sake of your children’s well-being (which, in turn, is better for all of us).
Read more about Lightward Bound’s parenting research in Tooele at:
https://lightwardbound.org/Main/research/