Blog #3

I have had the good fortune to have three beautiful children.  Two are from my previous marriage. They are 25 and 30 years old, my first born was a son and the baby was a girl and she remained the baby for some 17 years.

  I would definitely say that as a young mother in her twenties (I just gave away my age, didn’t I?) I parented using the authoritarian style and very often used the phrase “because I said so.”  Ours was a single parent household.   Looking back now I can see that I was probably too strict at times.  My decision on my parenting style came from two major factors.  I came from a household where there were really no rules but desperately wanted and needed them as a child. Secondly being a single mother of a boy I feared losing control of him as he grew up.

I wish the book had gone into a little more depth on the participants of the case studies. Although correlation is not causation there just seems to be way too many variable to draw any conclusions.  My two oldest are like day and night.  My son who is now a Marine has never suffered from low self esteem or lacked in social skills. This was probably due to the fact he was a very handsome young man and played many sports.  By the time my daughter came along my parenting style had relaxed to a degree.  However, she does suffer low self esteem and social skills.  I would contribute this more to the relationship she had with her father than from any parenting style. 

As I said earlier seventeen years later and a second marriage baby girl number three arrived.  I definitely take the authoritative parenting style with her.  My husband on the other hand is very permissive with her.  This is his first child and he is wound very tightly around her little finger.   My husband is from a different culture and to be honest I am not sure if this style is cultural or just his style.  We have our own little case study going on.  My husband is taking the naturalistic observation approach.  Pun intended.