Family dynamics: how family members interact through various relationships: parents with child, parent with parent, and sibling with sibling

Parenting 

Socialization: the process through which children acquire the values, standards, skills, knowledge, and behaviors that are regarded as appropriate for their present and future roles in their particular culture 

Discipline

Discipline: the set of strategies and behaviors parents use to teach children how to behave appropriately

• Most effective if it leads to a permanent changes in the child’s behavior because the child has learned and accepted the reasons for desired behavior – internalization  

• Most common form is reasoning  

Internalization: the process by which children learn and accept the reasons for desired behavior

• Reasoning focused on the effects of a behavior on other people (other-oriented induction), is particularly effective at promoting internalization

• Added benefit of teaching children empathy/linked to greater social competence 

• Occurs best when parents apply the right amount of psychological pressure on children

• Discipline techniques that apply too much psychological/physical pressure on children are not effective at promoting internalization – punishment 

Punishment: negative stimulus that follows a behavior to reduce the likelihood that the behavior will occur again 

• On their own punishments are not effective ways to teach the child how to behave in future 

• Parent’s slightly raised voice/disapproving look are often all the pressure that is needed to get a child to comply 

Parenting styles 

• Parents’ overall style of interacting with their children can also govern the parent-child relationship and children’s developmental outcomes ‘

Parenting styles: the constellation of parenting behaviors and attitudes that set the emotional climate of parent-child interactions

Two dimensions of parenting styles that are particularly important 

1. The degree of parental warmth and responsiveness 

2. The degree of parenting control and demandingness  

Parental responsiveness: how quickly and appropriately parents respond to children's needs, requests for assistance, or distress 

Parental control: the extent to which parents monitor and manage children’s behavior through rules and consequences 

Demandingness: an expectation of conformance to parent’s desires and a low tolerance for children’s own interest and desires 

Diana Baumrind 

• Differentiated among 4 styles of parenting related to the dimensions of support and control

• Authoritative, authoritarian, permissive and uninvolved 

Authoritative parenting: tends to be demanding but also warm and responsive 

• Set clear standards and limits for their children and are firm about enforcing them 

• They allow their children considerable autonomy within those limits

• Are attentive and responsive to their children’s concerns and needs

• And respect and consider their children’s perspective 

• Children tend to be competent, self-assured and popular with peers 

Authoritarian parenting: tends to be cold and unresponsive to children’s needs 

• High demandingness 

• Enforce their demands through parental power and the use of threats and punishment

• Oriented towards obedience and authority and expect their children to comply with their demands without question and explanation 

• Children – relatively low in social and academic competence, unhappy and unfriendly, and low in self-confidence 

• Boys more affected than girls in early childhood 

Permissive parenting: responsive to children’s need and wishes but so much so that parents are overly lenient with them 

• High in responsiveness/low in demandingness 

• Don’t require their children to regulate themselves or act in appropriate or mature ways 

• Children – impulsive, low self-regulation, high externalizing problems, low in school achievement 

• Engage more in school misconduct and drug or alcohol use 

Uninvolved parents: parents that are generally disengaged

• Low in both demandingness and responsiveness 

• Parent focus on own needs rather than their children’s 

• Set no limits 

• Rejecting or neglectful 

• Children – disturbed attachment relationships when infant/toddler, have problems with peer relationships as older children

• There has been a reasonable concern that these parenting styles don’t accurately reflect either the types of parenting behavior preferred by parents across cultures or the effects of those behaviors on children

• Parenting styles appear to function on the same way across cultures

Differences in mothers’ and fathers’ interactions with their children

• Major difference in the amount of time spent caring for child 

• mothers spend on average of an hour and a half more with their children each day than fathers 

• Differences in what type of child-rearing behaviors 

• Mothers more likely to provide physical care and emotional support than fathers

• Fathers spend a greater proportion of their available time playing with child both in infancy/childhood – more physical and rough-and-tumble play 

• Involvement vary somewhat as a function of cultural practices and factors 

• Both mothers and fathers on countries around the world spend significant amounts of their nonwork time playing with their children 

• Effects of mothers’ and fathers’ parenting on child development are the same 

The child’s influence on parenting 

• Children’s behaviors can shape parents’ typical parenting style as well 

• Individual difference in children contribute to the parenting they receive 

• Children also actively shape the parenting process through their behavior and expressions of temperament 

• How children behave with their parents can be due to a number of factors 

• Temperament 

• Some children may be more reactive to the quality of parenting they receive than others 

• SLC6A4 (serotonin transporter gene) makes them especially responsive to their rearing environment

• In resisting their parents’ demands children may become so whiny or aggressive that their parents back down 

• The parents’ behavior has been affected by the children’s behavior and the children’s behavior has been reinforced by the parent’s behavior 

• Parents escalate their neg emotions which evoke even more neg behavior from children – coercive cycles 

Bidirectionality: idea the parents and children are mutually affected by one another’s characteristics and behaviors 

• Key factor in parent-child relationships that exhibit a pattern of cooperation, positive affect, harmonious communication and coordinated behavior, with the positive behavior of each partner eliciting analogous positive behavior from the other 

• Also occurs in negative behaviors 

Sibling relationships 

• Influence one another’s development and the functioning of the larger family system in many ways, both negative and positive 

• Source of support, instruction, security, assistance and caregiving 

• Like peer relationships – close on age interact in ways characterized by sharing and reciprocity 

• Sibling relationships like parent-child relationships – older one has more power and influence over the younger one 

• Tend to be less hostile and more supportive when their parents are warm and accepting of them 

• Relationships may suffer if parents favor one child more than the other  

Sibling conflict 

• Contribute to the development of undesirable behaviors

• High levels of sibling aggression and conflict predict low-self regulation and risky sexual behavior in one or both siblings 

• Can also be a crucible for learning important life skills

• Cultural values may also play a role in children’s evaluations of, and reactions to, differential parental treatment 

• Nature of the parents’ relationships with each other also affects sibling interactions 

• Get along better if their parents get along 

• Rivalry and conflict tend to be higher in divorced families and in remarried families than in non-divorced families, even between biological siblings