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Parenting

Parenting encompasses a wide range of attitudes and behaviors directed toward meeting the physical, emotional, and social needs of children. As the first relationship formed in life, the parent-child relationship serves as a model for later relationships and is one through which children develop both interpersonal skills and intrapersonal attributes. Not surprisingly, there have been extensive empirical studies over the past 60 years focused on parenting behaviors, particularly those that appear to facilitate children's emotional and psychological development. In the course of the investigations, some factors have emerged as critical dimensions of parenting. In addition to describing these dimensions, this entry presents the field's current understanding of how parenting affects children's well-being, the universality of these effects, alternative ways of conceptualizing parenting, and key predictors of parenting behaviors.

Key Parenting Dimensions

Over the years, three important dimensions of parenting have consistently emerged as central to child development: warmth/involvement, autonomy-supportive versus controlling behavior, and structure. They are linked respectively to three basic human needs: those for relatedness, which refers to closeness and intimacy; autonomy, which refers to self-determination and choicefulness (rather than independence); and competence. Although different terms have been used to describe the three dimensions, these terms have in common a link to a specific need.

Warmth/Involvement

The first dimension has been conceptualized in various ways, including parents' expression of love, their affective response, and their nurturance, warmth, and involvement. These behaviors facilitate a sense of relatedness in children. Although warmth refers to parents' emotional availability and their willingness to show affection and empathy, involvement refers more specifically to parents' provision of tangible, emotional, and behavioral resources (e.g., time) and implies active participation in the child's life, both emotionally and physically. A warm and involved parent would know about their child's ever-changing interests, attend their games and/or performances, and do so in a caring, positive manner.

Across a wide range of ages, parental warmth and involvement have been linked with a variety of positive child outcomes, including higher academic achievement and lower levels of delinquency and internalizing symptoms. They also predict secure parent-child attachment and later adaptive relationship skills. In addition, warmth/involvement has been shown to facilitate positive outcomes by building adaptive self-related beliefs and motivations such as self-esteem, perceived competence, and perceived control. It is important to note a crucial distinction between being involved and being intrusive. One can take an active interest in one's child without taking over. This leads to discussion of another key dimension of parenting.

Autonomy-Supportive versus Controlling Behavior

The second parenting dimension is autonomy-supportive versus controlling behavior. Autonomy support involves allowing children to be part of decision-making processes and to have a sense of choice. Children, like all humans, need to feel that they are initiators of their own behavior, rather than forced or pressured to do another's bidding (in this case, their parents'). Thus, autonomy support facilitates fulfillment of the need for autonomy. The opposite end of the autonomy-supportive dimension is control. Controlling parents pressure children into doing specific behaviors using rewards or guilt or by threatening to withdraw their love.

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