Hw 57- How should kids be parented?

     Parenting is quite a sensitive topic. Parents can be blamed for a lot of flaws in a child's behavior. A troubled kid can easily just be the result of an unsuitable uprising by unfit parents. But is it really all on mom and pops?

     I think the culture and environment of an individual grows up in accounts a lot for the identities they might develop post adolescence, when they are no longer living at home. Then again, it is the responsibility of guardians to teach their kids good values that will make them care less about social trends and peer pressure, and focus more on who they are as an individual.

     But where to begin? How can we help potential parents put their offspring on the right path to success and happiness?

      It could possibly be linked to the relationship between mother and father. Its nice to think that a baby is the product of two people who are madly in love and want to procreate so that they can bring a person into the world who is a piece of both of them. The main component for any healthy relationship should be love and appreciation, because without it there is no reason to tolerate one another. Like we established during the school unit, when people express that they care for you it inspires you to WANT to do better. When people have faith in you, you want to prove to them that your worthy of that acknowledgment. And if a person decides to raise a child, they should embody qualities in which they are capable of showing affection to another person who would look to you for such comfort.

   Individuals who become parents without planning can differ from those who do plan, although not in all cases. But it seems, that once a child becomes a burden to their parents life as an individual, its harder for them to receive the affirmation they need in order to build healthy relationships. Mother and child is the first relationship anyone ever experiences, because it is physical attachment. Sharing the same DNA automatically links those two people together. So that puts an enormous emphasis on the mothers role in the childs life. Not to say the fathers role isn't just as significant. The father is the first male relationship and child will ever know of, and he sets an example either a) for how a boy should act or b) for how a girl should interact with other male figures.

       I don't think anyone can ever know the right way to parent until they start actually parenting. My mom once said that she thought she knew EXACTLY the kind of mother she was gana be. Easy going yet stern, loving yet embodying authority and demanding obedience. Her kids would eat all organic and never once touch MacDonalds. Of course that all changed once my sister and I arrived, and we would cry for french fries and keep playing with our toys when we were told it was nap time. You can't really know until your there.
   Then again, this doesn't mean you should just wing it and improvise as you go along. Educating yourself and being as well informed as possible could never hurt. What works for one person may very well work for you, just don't depend on it considering all children are different.
One common misconception is to say that all siblings will act alike. My sister and I came from the same household, were raised by the same parents, and yet we turned out to be totally different people. Then again, she was adopted. And I wasn't. This can be considered an enormous difference and explanation as to why she acted up more and felt compelled to rebelling at an earlier age with shadier people.

I'm not so sure if an adolescence behavior directly reflects parenting tactics their parents used on them, but it does have some influence on who they are once they leave the nest. A parents example sets other examples for a child's relationship with other adults.

     "Because I'm free from it all. I'm not gana change, unless I want to."

        Diana Baumrind's different parenting styles were broken down into three categories; the permissive parent, the authoritarian parent and finally the authoritative parent.  
Authoritative parenting was said to be the most efficient form of parenting due to the persons open-mindedness about realistic expectations for their child to meet. As opposed to authoritarian parents who set boundaries aside from acknowledging if their kid can abide by them, authoritative parents teach them how to be "competent individuals" who can follow direction but also think for themselves. These skills usually pertain to how stable the person is aside from how they are as a parent. Baumrind emphasizes that parents with strong social skills and good emotional stability can handle parenting better then those who are antisocial and self conscious.

       Like Bowen was saying in his Theory about Relationships, those who are emotionally mature, or more highly differentiated, person had a greater amount of self with which to negotiate the problems of life, including those of relationships. What I get from this is that the more differentiated you are, the more accepting you can be, especially when it comes to your own family. "At lower levels of emotional maturity, on the other hand, people tend to seek comfort in relationships." People like that feel more pressure to raise the perfect child, and therefor enforce authority and harsh obedience, which could potentially their child against them.