by Hiruni Herath
Are you concerned about how your parenting affects your child’s language development?
Read this to find out how different parenting styles can affect the language development of children.
Parents-to-be as well as new parents might be confused about a lot of things, from how to feed a child properly to ensuring your child learns to speak and display linguistic skills at the right age. Parents are able to pick up some of these child rearing skills and the necessary knowledge through experience, but there are still some things in which they need guidance. Child language development is very much an area in which parents should refer to a second expert opinion. Even so, when considering the most appropriate parenting style, parents tend to forget how such styles can affect the development of language in children.
What are the different parenting styles?
Firstly, parents must be aware of the different parenting styles that are present and adopted by them either consciously or unconsciously. One parenting style is the 'authoritarian parenting style' which should not be confused with the 'authoritative' parenting style. The first is when parents apply rules that their children must absolutely obey. In this, the parents often appear dictatorial, whereas the second style builds a more harmonious relationship between parents and children through effective communication. Another parenting style is 'permissive' parenting where parents leave children to behave and grow up at their will with little to no interference, believing in the children’s ability to learn and develop by themselves. The final major parenting style is 'uninvolved' parenting where parents are minimally or not at all involved in their children’s upbringing. This last parenting style can even border on neglect.
How do parenting styles influence the language development of children?
Parents are the ones who interact with their children the most from the day they are born, and they are also the ones who provide the environment in which children develop language. Therefore, children’s language development, especially in the first three years of their life, is the responsibility of the parents. In this context, these four main categories of parenting style definitely influence a child’s ability to develop language as they determine how a parent interacts with their child as well as what kind of language they use when speaking to the child.
The parenting style which is most suited for the language development of children is the authoritative parenting style where children are able to navigate language with the guidance of their parents. Responsive parents who are able to engage with their children and answer their questions are more likely to have children who are able to produce language earlier and easier. The authoritative parenting style has also proven to have a positive influence on the learning abilities of children after they develop their language skills.
Parents who adopt an uninvolved parenting style often don't interact with their children or even speak to them. This means that there are no adult figures through whom children are exposed to adult speech and thereby able to at least mimic or imitate verbal language skills.
Even the permissive parenting style is not the best suited for encouraging and providing a good environment for children to develop language. As parents who adopt this style tend to give their children absolute freedom, there isn’t much moderation or encouragement for children to correct their mistakes.
The authoritarian parenting style will ensure that children develop language correctly through strict regulation. This does not allow children the freedom to make mistakes and learn from them as their behaviour and speech is monitored and managed. Furthermore, children might be afraid of their parents and thereby unwilling to experiment with learning and exploring the different ways in which language can be manoeuvred.
In conclusion…
Many other factors such as cultural background and parenting practices around play and education affect the ability of a child to develop language - parents must be aware that it is not the parenting style alone which affects language development. This is so specially if they are in a bilingual and/or multilingual environment. The right parenting style, which most would agree is the authoritative parenting style, should be supported by good parenting practices so that a child has the best environment to develop their language. Therefore, parents need to reflect on themselves and their parenting styles in order to ensure children not only develop their language skills but also turn out to be wholesome and well-rounded individuals.