4 PARENTING STYLES AND 4 CHALLENGES OF PARENTING. Steve Obiakor.

Parenting is relatively a new concept in Psychology and other related social sciences. It is an active verb that supposes control, coordination, guidance, protection, provision and all other forms of physical, emotional, social and spiritual care for our Children. Parenting used to be cultural or religious centered but as social norms and traditions evolve, parenting strategies have changed drastically. Our greatest challenge in this part of the world is how to bridge the gap between our cultural parenting strategies and demands of the new generation children which seem to be directly opposed to each other. Our rapidly accelerating pace of modern life, present significant obstacles and pressures for parents who genuinely want to make their children feel cared for without driving themselves crazy. Parents are constantly expected to anticipate the needs of their children and provide same for them. Parents are expected to influence and orchestrate their children’s grades. Parents are to also make the home an oasis of peace and tranquillity for their children. All of these demands and many more are expected to be met even in a most gruelling environment like Nigeria.

A renowned Developmental Psychologist, Diana Baumrind identified four main styles of parenting which are:

Authoritative parenting seems to be generally acceptable and parents would have to deal with other circumstances facing them and militating against achieving their best for their children. Below are 4 Common challenges that affect parenting in the 21st century.

Today, in this new world of ours, more knowledge and understanding of human behavioural patterns are required even before getting married. As a result of this, many young men and women seeking life partners read books and articles on marriage and very few of them read on parenting. They eventually get married and become super couples but confused parents. It is pertinent to note that being an effective wife or an effective husband does not automatically translate to being an effective mother or an effective father. These are closely related but two different concepts; a successful marriage is not an absolute pointer to a successful parenting. Therefore, while we put in so much to learn about marital lives, let us also learn parenting. Read books and articles on parenting; attend seminars and consult experts when the need arises. Take parenting seriously.

We might not achieve anything near perfection in parenting but we surely can reach a mile stone if we become intentional about our approaches and duly plan their implementations irrespective of what our challenges might be.

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