Parenting and Family Education

Archive for February, 2010

University education – what is the point? It seems to me that being a ‘student’ these days is really just a three year campaign to achieving liver poisoning. And that’s only part of the reason I encouraged my son do a city and guilds training course in engineering rather than go to university to rack up a three year debt, only to end up another statistic after it all. I mean, in my day, being a student with a university education meant being passionate about the subject you wanted to study and highly skilled in it. Nowadays you can get a degree in just about anything and a loan to spend on drinking yourself to a stupor the whole while. And the education system actually promotes this ridiculous activity. No wonder so many kids leave university without any real sense of direction. People should only get a degree in a classic subject that they are skilled in and passionate about.

My daughter for instance – she’s always been the mathematician in the family. I mean, she just has a natural ability in the subject and thoroughly enjoys it; it only makes sense to support her in taking it further at a good course in an established university institute.  But I don’t want any of my children to go into higher education as young adults under the assumption that they are doing so in order to solely “have a blast”, with no real sense of purpose or direction. A degree is meaningless with no solid pathway upon completion. I honestly can’t understand why more education authorities and parents don’t encourage young adults to take up the likes of a city and guilds training course or training at some such similar body – society would be much better off sporting a mass of individuals with relevant and specific skill sets rather than all these wishy washy ‘subjects’ you can study at what we’re duped into believing are actual ‘universities’.

The life of a parent undergoes a dramatic change with the birth of a child and it requires that he or she need to make certain decisions like choosing between bottle or breast, carriage or stroller, continuing work or staying home, employing a nanny or opting for day care.

With children growing up, these decisions continue to change and parents need to decide on the school the child must attend, their meals, allowances, after-school activities and more. All these decisions are dependent on the parenting style and attitude which will influence how the child is taught and learns to socialize.

A Complicated Matter with No Easy Answers

Parenting is a complicated matter with no easy answers available, and many different interactions concerning certain actions and attitudes on the part of parents need to be put together which will affect the development of the child. Such a broad overall pattern of parental actions are termed as a parenting style; not a single act.

Parenting styles may differ and they were best described by Diana Baumrind as well as other researchers in child development. They sought out qualities in children that were most desirable such as innocence, maturity, independence, self-reliance, curiosity, self-control, friendliness as well as achievement orientation and they further quizzed parents to ascertain which elements of parenting nurtured such qualities, and then came up with two factors, which are responsiveness or warmth as well as supportiveness, and demandingness or control of the child’s behavior.

The four major parenting styles they found were authoritarian, authoritative, permissive and uninvolved. After further research, they came to conclude that the best adjusted children, especially when it came to social competence, were children of parents that belonged to an authoritative, moderate parenting style. Such parents were able to balance high demands with emotional responsiveness as well as respect for the autonomy of their children.

In contrast, parents that are too strict expect their children to accept parental judgments without argument and do not allow much freedom to the child. Children under such parenting style influences will be reliant on authority and will not be able to show much spontaneity. Authoritative parents, in sharp contrast, allow their children freedom of expression and encourage a sense of independence in their children.

Parenting style can influence the child and it has been found that children of authoritarian mothers were five times more likely to be overweight as compared to authoritative mothers, while children of permissive or uninvolved parents were three times more at risk.

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