Many children in the United States are being put at a disadvantage because of their parents. There is a certain style of parenting that has many negative effects on the child that may go unnoticed. Authoritative Parenting is a style of parenting where the main focus is on control, discipline, and obedience instead of effectively teaching and guiding their children through life with nurture, compassion, and understanding. Authoritative parents may do it in the name of love, however, they fail to realize that it is all about impact over intent. There is a certain type of wisdom that these parents lack and it results in long term negative outcomes on the child’s overall mental health and stunts the emotional bond that is needed between the parent and the child. Children from dysfunctional families tend to suffer with mental illnesses such as depressive and anxious disorders. Therefore, parents should participate in parent training programs before becoming a parent in order to avoid being the cause of their child’s mental health issues.
It is reasonable to assume that authoritarian parents are indeed toxic. According to Early Childhood Specialist Tracy Trautner, “[These] parents expect kids to follow the rules with no discussion or compromising” (Trautner). Authoritarian parenting behaviors include shaming instead of positive reinforcement, being very impatient with misbehavior, they’re harshly critical, and have trust issues. Authoritarian parents fail to realize that their children are people too and that they should treat them as such. Children are humans deserving of respect, positive reassurance, patience, grace, and trust. There are children who feel the need to constantly be hiding something, even if it’s inherently innocent as being on the phone with a friend or wanting to go see a movie with them. This is simply because their parents lack trust in them, and did not properly teach them how to make good decisions. They don't know that in order to establish trust within their children, they need to first teach their children how to make good decisions. How can they teach them about decision making if the child never feels comfortable enough to go to their parents for advice due to fear of being shamed for their mistakes? These are also the type of parents to invade the child’s privacy and have no regard for how the child feels about it. To add on, According to Psychosocial Rehabilitation Specialist Kendra Cherry, authoritarian parents also are demanding but not responsive, unwilling to negotiate rules, and they believe that children should be seen not heard (Cherry). For example, authoritarian parents tend to set very high expectations for their children while also not caring if the children are even able to meet those standards or not. It is safe to say that they do not care about the child’s emotional well-being and can result in the child not wanting anything to do with their parents in the future. Authoritarian parents are emotionally unintelligent.
Although it is safe to say that authoritarian parents are toxic, it is also important to consider the reason why. One of the main reasons why parents are so strict is because of fear. According to Pamela Li, Ms, MBA, “Some strict parents are controlling because they fear being seen as incompetent parents if their children make mistakes. Such parents are more concerned about their own feelings and insecurity than their children’s well-being” (Li). Unfortunately, there’s the idea that the best behaved children are parented in the best ways, which is a very erroneous ideology. The saying, “Hurt people hurt people”, also applies to parents too. Another of the main reasons authoritarian parents are so strict is because they grew up with these same types of parents and that is the only way that they know how to parent. A lot of the children today come from a generation of people who did not prioritize mental health, had no social media or a way of influence, and also did not prioritize emotional intelligence. Thus, acknowledging the fact that a lot of authoritarian parents were not educated on parenting, takes us a step closer to children being less traumatized by their parents.
While it is true that authoritarian parents have issues themselves, it does not take away from the fact that children are mentally suffering at the hands of the people who raised them due to harsh punishments. One of the main negative effects of authoritarian parenting is that there is a high chance that they can develop depression. According to Dr. Elizabeth Morgan, a study done by her colleagues in 2007, “correlated the use of harsh discipline with the ability of young adults to establish autonomy while maintaining a healthy parent-adolescent relationship. They found that the use of harsh discipline by both parents resulted in greater adolescent depression” (Morgan). Being that authoritarian parents believe using harsh punishment on their children to get the results they want is a good idea, it puts the child at a disadvantage. In fact, it is proven that harsh punishments do not work the way that parents would like to. According to Carole Banks LCSW, “Harsh punishments are not effective for improving a child’s behavior. Instead, they only create resentment. If you punish your child too harshly, he will only be thinking about his anger toward you and not about the consequences of his actions”(Banks). It is also safe to say that in many cases, authoritarian parents are abusive with their punishments. According to the National Research Council (U.S) Panel on Research on Child Abuse, “Physical harm is defined as disfigurement, impairment of bodily functions or other serious physical injury. Emotional damage is evidenced by severe anxiety, depression or withdrawal, or untoward aggressive behavior towards self or others, and the child's parents are unwilling to provide treatment for him/her" (NRCP 61). Harsh punishments such as spanking or beating their children with all sorts of things such as a thin metal wire or a broomstick, can all have negative physical and emotional effects on the child. Not only that but punishments that involve repeatedly yelling at, insulting, and using profane language towards their children is considered abuse; which is also a partial result of ignorance on the parent’s part. Due to the fact that authoritarian parents use harsh punishment for discipline, it can definitely lead to depression.
In addition to authoritarian parents using harsh ways of discipline, they also rarely allow their children the opportunity to socialize with their friends. This causes children to feel left out of their friend group and feel closed off from the world in general. A lot of the time, their only way of socializing with others is through social media; it is also very likely that they're not allowed to have social media. In other words, these children feel a disconnect from all their other peers, while not being able to do the things that their peers are allowed to do. For example, a child of 17 may be invited to a birthday party with their friends and without reasoning, their parents would not allow them to go. If the child is lucky, they would get to go, however, the parent would only allow them to stay for a short amount of time after arriving. Things such as this would discourage the child from ever feeling like their parents would give them the slightest bit of freedom or trust. A young person on tiktok who goes by the username, “feel1ings” stated, she wants to live her life as a normal teenager and be allowed make mistakes and deal with them on her own without her parents constantly controlling her. She also stated that her parents claim that they trust her, however, she was barely given any freedom and she is not even allowed to have her room door closed. Finally, she also stated that all of these issues contribute to her poor mental health and the demise of their relationship. Unfortunately, there are a plethora of teenagers who can relate, or are going through even worse situations. Some other teenagers are not even allowed to participate in extracellular activities because of their parents. Parents who make their children feel like they are living on house arrest are much more likely to struggle mentally.
To add on to the fact that authoritarian parents do not allow their children to grow socially, they also set them up for failure in their future relationships. Because authoritarian parents are so harsh, it is very likely that their children will feel rejected by them a majority of the time. According to Ronald P. Rohner and his colleagues, when a child feels rejected by their parents and feels like they will never be good enough for them, this leads to a heightened sensitivity to being rejected (i.e Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria). He then proceeded to say:
…the children become disposed to anxiously and angrily expect, to readily perceive, and to overreact to rejection in ways that compromise their intimate relationships as well as their own well-being. Additionally, these authors and their colleagues have found that rejection sensitive children and adults often interpret the minor or imagined insensitivity of significant others--or the ambiguous behavior of others--as being intentional rejection (Rohan 3).
It is not surprising that the child of an authoritarian parent can suffer from sensitivity to rejection because authoritarian parents also tend to be unpredictable people when it comes to their emotions, which then leads the child to feel a constant sense of instability around their parents. With this constant sense of instability, the child is always either subconsciously or consciously attempting to predict their parent’s emotions towards them, based on their facial expressions. A lot of the time, this prediction is incorrect and the child then proceeds to internalize the perceived emotion and think that they have done something wrong; when in fact, the parent could have been upset at something else and it had nothing to do with them. This is because they are so used to getting in trouble or lectured for the most irrational causes that to them, it would make sense that the parent would be mad at them for no reason. It could have also been that the parent was absolutely fine and they were just feeling tired at that moment. This increased sensitivity to rejection can then manifest itself in future relationships because the child either is not aware of this issue or simply does not know how to fix it.
Despite being informed of all these negative effects, some may still argue that authoritarian parenting is beneficial for their children in the long run. One of their reasons is because it pushes their children to succeed in life. According to Freelance Writer Darlene Zagata, strict parents set very high expectations for their children and demand the best grades from them; however, a lot of the time they do meet those expectations (Zagata). The main thing that these people fail to realize is that they are actually damaging their children. To clarify, the child is prone to an excessive amount of stress trying to constantly please their parents and avoid harsh punishments. Childhood stress alone is very unhealthy in both the short and long run. According to Dr. Sarah K. Jensen from JAMA Pediatrics, “The effect of early adversity on the brain has long been suggested to relate to neurobiological sequelae associated with excessive stress”(Jensen). In other words, too much stress during childhood development has a negative effect on the child’s brain structure and development; these negative effects can lead to trouble regulating emotions and suffering from anxious disorders. Although having authoritarian parents may put a child in the position for success, that same child is more likely to suffer from physical and mental health defects.
As our society is shifting more towards normalizing and prioritizing healthy psychological conditions, it is imperative to guide the focus more towards the root of this issue: the way that people parent their children. As stated previously, one of the main reasons some parents are conventionally terrible at parenting is because they were never informed on how to do so. While it is true that the perfect parent does not exist, there are some possible solutions to lessen the likeness of an authoritarian parent. One of these solutions include free parenting training by board certified psychiatrists at the hospital that the child is being birthed at. According to research manager Monica Idzelis Rothe, “Parenting education promotes the use of positive parenting practices, such as using positive language, planned discipline, and family routines. It also encourages nurturing behavior and increases parents' knowledge of child development and communication styles” (Rothe). By increasing the parent’s knowledge of child development, they will be more aware of what behaviors are truly appropriate for the child’s age. For example, a two year old throwing a tantrum when in reality, it is the parent’s responsibility to teach the child how to regulate their emotions instead of being punished for it. Parents tend to forget that they are their child’s first teacher so it would be imperative that they use the most effective ways to do so without being abusive or manipulative. This solution will benefit the family as a whole because each parent will learn how to set healthy emotional and psychological habits and will proceed to teach each of their children what they’ve learned. As a result, each family member will learn how to communicate effectively with love and respect and have a healthy home environment. That is why participating in these parenting programs before or shortly after the child is born is considerably the next best thing for the generations to come.
Government funded parent training programs have the potential to break the cycle of abuse that has been passed down from generation to generation. It is also best to keep in mind that there is only so much that the government can do to be of aid to children that are already in these situations because the damage has already been done. This is an issue that essentially affects almost everyone due to the fact that people who suffered abuse and manipulation tend to become offenders themselves. That is why it is time for society to remember to extend grace to all of our members; their story might have been a tough one.
Works Cited
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Cherry, Kendra. “What Is Authoritarian Parenting?” Verywell Mind, Dotdash Media, 2021, https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-authoritarian-parenting-2794955.
@feel1ings. “#fyp#ruined#strictparents#trustissues#relationship.” TikTok, 11 Dec. 2020, https://vm.tiktok.com/ZTdQJcnGb/.
Jensen, Sarah K., et al. “Effect of Early Adversity and Childhood Internalizing Symptoms on Brain Structure in Young Men.” JAMA Pediatrics, vol. 169, no. 10, 2015, p. 938., https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2015.1486.
Li, Pamela. “Strict Parents - What's Wrong with Them.” Parenting For Brain, Mediavine Family, 8 Mar. 2022, https://www.parentingforbrain.com/strict-parents/.
Morgan, Elizabeth. “Parental Discipline Styles: A Study of Its Effects on the Development ...” Scholar Works, 2021, https://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1088&context=mcnair_journal.
National Academy Press. “Understanding Child Abuse and Neglect.” Panel on Research on Child Abuse and Neglect Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education National Research Council, 1993, p. 61., https://doi.org/10.17226/2117.
Rohner, Ronald P., et al. “Parental Acceptance-Rejection: Theory, Methods, Cross-Cultural Evidence, and Implications.” Ethos, vol. 33, no. 3, 2005, pp. 299–334., https://doi.org/10.1525/eth.2005.33.3.299.
Rothe, Monica Idzelis. “The Benefits of Parenting Education - Wilder Foundation.” Wilder, Amherst H. Wilder Foundation, 2016, https://www.wilder.org/sites/default/files/imports/LitReviewSummary_10-16.pdf.
Trautner, Tracy. “Authoritarian Parenting Style.” MSU Extension, Michigan State University, 19 Jan. 2017, https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/authoritarian_parenting_style.
Zagata, Darlene. “The Advantages of Strict Parents.” How To Adult, Leaf Group Lifestyle, 7 Apr. 2020, https://howtoadult.com/advantages- strict-parents-8670.html.