I am super excited to be doing my first parenting blog post!

After years of investing time and other resources to better understand why people turn out the way they do and what could be done to overhaul the uninspiring narratives, I decided to start sharing some of the fundamental lessons I gleaned in the course of my journey so far.

This blog is one of the avenues I am dedicating to solely focus on strengthening one of those core pillars that shape human outcomes – Parenting. Welcome onboard if you are concerned about the state of our youngsters and society at large, and you are seeking to or interested in being part of the community of people who are daring to author and entrench better narratives especially by making better parenting impacts.

I had wanted to tag this post “Parenting for a better world”. However, I decided to save that title perhaps for another day.

Why should we care about parenting?

Visit any factory site, I am sure you wouldn’t be surprised about the end results or products you see ready to be shipped or being shipped to the market. This would basically be because, you among other things, know that the factory is set up for such products. The leadership of such factory must have among other things, identified the necessary raw materials for the product they want to produce and release to the market. And beyond that, must have also created efficient systems to transform the raw materials into their finished products of choice in the right quality.

With the factory illustration in mind, I have three questions for your to reflect on:

1. 1. Have you wondered what actually is responsible for how people turn out?
   2. If human outcomes were products, in what factories would they be best produced?
   3. Again, if human outcomes were a product, what raw materials and processes should we be using to ensure we have the highest quality of the product?

You see, I believe that as far as humans are concerned, there are two fundamental factories that determine the quality of people any society would have. These factories are:

• • The Family and
  • Education System

The foundation for the process of producing responsible individuals begins from the family. The success or otherwise of this process, has everything to do with the quality of parenting. And the buck stops with parenting style. The truth is: no one is born a great parent, people develop themselves to being one especially when they understand and appreciate the weight of the privileged responsibility of parenting.

Sometimes when a child doesn’t grow to become the adult or individual society expects them to, we wonder or ask the person why, when we should in fact be asking why the factory (family) failed to produce the right quality of individual for human community. The quality of every product is at the mercy of the quality of personnel and systems they were exposed to.

Humans are highly impressionable at their early stages of life and that is why the Most-High instructed that the best time to train humans is when they are still in their childhood (train up a child in the way they should…) It is at this stage that the right character substance and mental systems can be infused into them. Character development is at best done in the first three – four years of life. It is at this stage that they get the primary foundation that will carry them through out the stages of human/life development.

Changes in a child’s development happen so rapidly and a quality parenting presence is required to provide the needed leadership and support. And of course, the outcome of every parenting influence is determined by parenting styles. No one is born with the best of it, it is cultivated. Having said that, it is  important for me to note that becoming a parent without knowing and developing one’s parenting style or at least reading about it and reflecting on their dominant tendencies when it comes to parenting, is a highly risky and potentially disastrous venture.

Understanding and Harnessing Parent Styles is a core subject in my school of Nation Building! And you don’t have to be a parent before you start developing yourself along these areas. Here is a highlight of four core parenting styles categorised based on the parent’s expectations and responsiveness according to the works of Psychologists Diana Baumrind, and other researchers: 

• • Authoritarian Parenting Style
  • Permissive Parenting Style
  • Neglectful/Uninvolved Parenting Style
  • Balanced or Authoritative Parenting Style

Authoritarian Parenting Style

This is a style of parenting that places very high emphasis on rules which must be strictly followed, obeyed at all cost, and discipline to foster compliance. Parents with this style are known for their high expectations, and tendencies to punish when children don’t follow set rules. See more of their characteristics below.

Tendencies of Authoritarian Parenting Style

• • They have high unrealistic expectations but are unwilling to put in the work required
  • The quality of their parenting presence is low and often absent and hence provide little or not nurturing
  • They have low trust thresholds and hence tend to overly micromanage their wards
  • They expect absolute obedience, often feel children don’t need to be heard and tend to always mistake intimidation for authority.
  • They are forceful, obsessed with control and often end up in power struggle with their evolving wards.
  • They have high punitive tendencies that break bonds with their wards

Does any of these sound close to you?

Parenting Style is a powerful and often underrated life-shaping tool. Children who grew up under an authoritarian parenting style will often show various degrees of the following characteristics:

• • They tend to be authoritarian as well in their interactions with their peers
  • They are inpatient, highly judgmental, harsh and often violent with their peers
  • They rarely or never had the chance to discover and develop their uniqueness  hence are often insecure about themselves and unaware of their abilities.
  • They struggle with low self-esteem as a result of the poor nurturing of their potentials
  • Getting along with people  is hard for them because the home never modeled healthy social skills for them
  • They lost their curiosity and self-belief early in life and hence grow up to become highly afraid to try new things or any growth adventures
  • They often end up being bored with life, and suffering depression, as a result of little or no growth experience.

If you knew your preferred parenting style will leave or produce adults with these tendencies, what will you start doing differently today? You can share your thoughts in the comment session below.

It is not all gloom for this Parenting Style. Here are a few positive outcomes it can facilitate:

• • Responsible behavior. Since rules are often well defined and clear with this parenting style, it is relatively easy for children to develop good understanding of what is and isn’t acceptable standard of behaviour and hence develop the acceptable to avoid unpleasant consequences.
  • Safety. There is a strong and often nonnegotiable emphasis on Safety with Authoritarian parenting — both emotional and physical. This helps children to understand and appreciate the outcomes of harmful actions or behaviours and the need for them to stay away from them. This also goes far to reduce the types of risky behavior the children will engage in.
  • Goal-driven. Authoritarian parenting style may also instill a strong goal orientation in children as they are given clear instructions including what they need to do to produce and maintain the outcomes that will keep them out of trouble with their parents.

While there are some positive sides to this parenting style, the negative effects of it often overshadow the outcomes.

Next, we would explore the other three parenting styles…. watch out for the concluding part of this.

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