Parenting styles are often a subject of discussion when it comes to families. Different styles have gained increased attention over the last several years. There are many reasons for this. New strategies and techniques such as attachment parenting have been introduced in order to help working couples create a successful relationship. Additionally, some scientific research has indicated that adapting these styles may indeed impact a child’s personality, leading to greater emotional health and resilience.
What is Attachment Parenting?
Parents globally seek a close emotional bond with their kids. They also try to develop amethod that works with their values. Some parenting models favor treating kids as young adults to be reasoned with. Others take an approach that stresses rule-following. They all try to create self-reliant adults who can create healthy relationships and go on to have families of their own.
Attachment parenting tries to focus energy and time on the nurturing connection that parents can evolve with their kids. That nurturing connection is seen as the ideal way to raise independent, secure, and empathetic children.
How does Attachment parenting differ from more traditional parenting? Experts divide the parenting styles into a few main categories. The first major category includes prioritizing the needs of the child. As it turns out, attachment parenting style actually does have an effect on personality. In Attachment parenting, the parents and caregivers are in constant touch with the kids; this allows the kids to experience a sense of “dependent parenting”. Additionally, some studies have indicated that boys of narcissistic parents are more likely to become narcissistic themselves, while other research has indicated that attachment parenting and narcissistic parenting are not linked.
In a separate window study, the study participants were children, who attended day-care centers for several hours each day. A different procedure was used for each participant, in order to determine which type of parenting style they fell under. The procedure consisted of two separate sessions. In the first session, the researchers observed the reactions of the participants, to various situations, as they interacted with their caregivers.
In the second session, psychological tests were performed, using the MMPI-2 (Morris Depression Inventory), the Trait Anxiety Inventory, and the MMPI-3 (Temperament model of personality). After performing these tests, the researchers analyzed the data using structural equation modeling, a procedure which uses several statistical analysis methods in order to obtain descriptive statistics. The present study found that there were significant differences between the attachment and narcissistic styles of parenting, and that these differences were significant only when the models were corrected for significant demographic, parental, and experiential variables. Furthermore, there were significant differences between the two types of parenting styles when the other variables were also controlled.
The results showed that there were significant differences between the parenting styles. However, when all of the other factors were adjusted for, the results for the authoritative parenting styles were no different than the other two. Likewise, when all of the other factors were additionally controlled, there was no significant difference between the attachment parenting styles and the controlling parenting styles. It is important to note that the results were conducted using only the self-report questionnaires, which are unable to detect significant changes in behavior from a behavioral perspective. Furthermore, the results are only valid if there are controls for the authoritarian and demandingness dimensions.
In conclusion, the present study provides strong empirical support for the view that there is an important link between parenting and self-regulation. Attachment parenting and authoritative parenting styles appear to be associated with greater levels of self-regulation among mothers and fathers. Higher attachment parenting and authoritarian parenting resulted in higher rates of addiction susceptibility and lower self-regulatedness. It is suggested that these relationships may be due to the role of parental authority and attachment parenting in shaping a child’s self-image and self-regulation attitudes and beliefs, which may then promote substance abuse or addiction later in life. However, it is unclear whether these associations are causal. Further studies are needed to determine if these relationships are causal and explain why higher rates of addiction susceptibility in children whose parents have authoritative parenting styles are predictive of greater alcohol use and other drug use at later life.
