During lecture 12’s discussion, we learned about three styles of parenting: authoritarian, permissive, and authoritative. Each of these styles are quite different when discussing their implementation and general philosophy. With the authoritarian practice we learned that parents tend to impose firm or strict rules on their children and expect that they obey those rules. With permissive parents, they will not say no to their kids. These types of parents will never impose any rules and most likely would tend to their children’s demands. Lastly, authoritative parents tend to be a mix of the two. Rules are set in place and expected to be followed, however, if a child is able to provide reasoning, they could negotiate and compromise with their parents. These types of parents are flexible and responsive to their kids, but they still have a general structure and set of rules that expect their kids to be obedient to.
When discussing these practices, I was caught reminiscing about my childhood and how I was raised. One thing I remember during my childhood was getting punished a lot. Now I know that sounds bad at first, but I will admit I was quite the troublemaker growing up. Along with that, I also remember that my parents, mostly my mother, had many rules, in which they expected us to follow. I believe that my parents imposed many rules on us because they had three kids (each a year apart) to look after and raise at the same time. Some rules that I remember pertained to curfews and time limits for things and since the three of us either enjoyed playing outside with friends, or play video games and toys, it makes sense that curfews and time limits had to be put in place. For example, my brother and I were forbidden to play Wii at all during the weekday, and we were limited to 1 hour on Saturday and 1 hour on Sunday. We even had a small white timer in front of the television in which as soon as the timer went off, we had to stop playing and do something else. If we didn’t stop playing after an hour, we would get grounded for an hour and sent to our room. For the most part, we obeyed those rules until we reached adolescence and after that it was the end of time limits. Another rule I remember was put in place whenever me or my siblings hung out with friends outside or over their house. If my memory serves me right, I think we had to come home around 8pm. We had the freedom of going anywhere around our neighborhood but as long as we told our parents where we were and we got back home before 8, we had no problems.
In general, our parents never let us stay past 8, play excessively, and respect one another. If we did not follow any of these rules, we usually got grounded for an hour or more, or if we really misbehaved, would get hit with a belt. Typical Hispanic parents would punish their kids by hitting them with belts and such, and I remember, just getting threatened to get hit with the belt was enough to get us to behave.
With that in mind, I would say that my parents used authoritarian practices when raising us. My parents were never lenient and willing to negotiate with the three of us and these authoritative practices really show because during adolescence we became more obedient, even if our parents didn’t threaten us with punishment.
I also remember thinking about the way my parents raised me and my brother, we are four years apart from each other. My parents were never that strict and we never really had rules or anything like that, but we also weren’t free to do whatever we wanted to. Thinking back to my childhood, my parents were definitely the authoritative type. I remember being grounded once when I was young for something that I can’t even remember now. And my brother probably never even got grounded (he was the favorite and still is). My parents never really imposed any rules, although they always negotiated with us until what time we could play outside with our friends or what time to get back home. And if they happen to not let us do something they would always have a talk with us first and explain their reasons, which at most times we seemed to understand. Although, the one thing my parents demanded os us and still do is that we get good grades and be respectful to others, which we do. Other than that, we are a pretty open family, very understanding and we negotiate a lot.
Reading your blog post, I related to you very much. My parents also used the authoritative parenting style. My parent’s had rules and limits, very similar to the ones your parents described. My brother and I were only allowed to use our Nintendo D.S and Wiis for certain amounts of time, once the time was up, they had to be shut off and everything put away and had to spend time reading a book. If we tried to push our times longer or argued about it, we would get scolded and punished by them taking our video game privileges. Like yours, although my parents could be strict with rules, they had a permissive side and I was able to talk to them, negotiate with them and compromise some things as I got older and more mature. No matter how much they did punish me and my brother, they always were still caring and enough so to be able to talk to us and give us some more freedoms as we grew up.
Sitting in class I as well started to think about what group my parents fell into. I grew up with mostly authoritative parents. I would never say I got punished badly though. My biggest punishments was no phone or TV. I remember when I first got my first phone they had a rule I wasn’t allowed to have it in my room when I was going to bed. That was basically the only rules my parents really had besides being polite to everyone and respecting them and others older than myself. When I got older and started to get into more trouble, they would still be very open to talking about what happened instead of jumping to conclusions and punishing me right away. I am the youngest of 4 and my 3 other siblings are 7-10 years older than me. Everyone always says the youngest child gets away with the least amount of punishment so I think I definitely got it way easier than the other 3 did. I really love the relationship I have with my parents and I can definitely call them my best friends so I am happy they raised me with the type of parenting they used.
When I was about 9, my parents got divorced, and the authoritative household I was so used to living in changed a lot. At my dad’s it was very strict, bedtime was 10 pm, we had to do our homework right when we got home from school, there was a list of chores that was our responsibility to have done when my parents got home from work. We also had a nanny at my dad’s house and because of this, rules were enforced 100% of the time. There was no leniency when it came to punishment either. My dad always said he gave us plenty of “longitude.” What he meant by this was that his rules were not hard to follow, and they weren’t very difficult to abide by, so when we didn’t follow them, we would always be punished. Usually, he would take our phones, send us to our rooms, and we would be grounded for a week or so. I was always very respectful of the rules, but my brothers rarely listened and often were in trouble. On the other side, my mom was the complete opposite. It was very loose in her house and rules/punishments were definitely up for debate if they even existed. She was much more relaxed in her parenting style and usually, we got away with any bad behavior that my brothers and I might’ve done. From what we learned in class, I now understand that my dad’s parenting was very authoritarian, and my moms were much more permissive.
My parents got a divorce when I was 8 or 9 years old. Before they separated I would say that my mother was very authoritative and my father was very permissive. For example, if my mom made a dinner composed of foods that I did not like she would tell me that I had to try at least one bite before I could make another dinner or leave the table. However, one time my mom made pasta salad and I refused to try it, so I went to my dad and told him I didn’t like dinner and I asked him to make me regular pasta. My mom was furious. But it shows two very different parenting styles. However, after the divorce both of my parents were authoritative parents. They had set rules such s a curfew or just mutual respect, but still allowed me the freedom to make my own mistakes and learn from them. Reflecting on my childhood, I am very grateful for the way my parents raised me. I felt like I had input on certain decisions, and it taught me how to make important decisions for myself. Authoritative parents consider their child’s thoughts or wishes on the subject and allow them to make mistakes in order for them to grow. There is no better teacher than yourself, and my ability to contribute to how I was parented taught me a lot.