How Parenting Patterns Are Learned
It is widely accepted by parent educators today that parenting patterns are learned in childhood and replicated later in life when children become parents. The experiences children have during the process of growing up have a significant impact on the attitudes, skills, and childrearing practices they will use with their own children. Although the concept of intergenerational replication of parenting is easy to accept, understanding the issues that affect the experiences children have while growing up is more complex. Professionals in the helping fields commonly discuss two types of childhood experiences:
- Positive experiences that build strong character and a sense of self-worth and that model a nurturing parenting style.
- Negative experiences that engulf children in parenting models of abuse, neglect, exploitation, and victimization.
Although neither the positive, nurturing experiences nor the negative, abusive experiences are isolated from one another, dominance of one over the other does make a difference. That is, the more children are exposed to a particular parenting style and quality of experience, the more they internalize that style and manifest it in their subsequent parenting attitudes and practices.
Process and Product
If the primary goal of the helping professions is to help families replace unwanted abusive patterns of behavior with more acceptable nurturing patterns, then a clear understanding of how people change is necessary. Parenting is both a process and a product. A process is something that happens, a direct or indirect action taken to achieve a goal or an end product. A product is the end result of a direct or indirect action. Examples are:
- Sexual intercourse (process) leads to pregnancy (product).
- Parenting (process) leads to parenting style of the child (product).
- Intervention (process) leads to change (product).
Any process has two opposite qualities: good/desirable and bad/undesirable. The most significant process that humans experience after birth is being parented. Parents create an environment that produces experiences that affect the growth of the individual child. In parenting, processes are either nurturing or abusive. Nurturing parenting processes employ nurturing touch, empathy, empowerment, and unconditional love to promote the overall health of the child. Conversely, abusive parenting processes such as hitting, belittling, neglecting basic needs, and other actions that lower an individual's sense of self-worth have a negative impact on the health of the child.
Abusive and Nurturing Parenting Continuum
Clearly, individuals can parent in only one of two ways—nurturing or abusive—at any given moment. The frequency and severity of each type of interaction make a significant difference in whether the child will learn nurturing parenting styles, abusive parenting styles, or some of both. Figure 1 details the relationship. The higher the degree of parental nurturing, the lower the degree of abuse because the behaviors are mutually exclusive. That is, hugging exists on the nurturing continuum, and hitting exists on the abusive continuum. Praising a child is a nurturing parenting practice, and berating a child is an abusive parenting practice. At each end of the continuum, the complete presence of one behavior is the complete absence of the other. The goal of child abuse prevention is the complete absence of abuse in any form, at any time, and to any degree. As shown in figure 1, lesser degrees of physical injury are sometimes not considered reportable abuse because of the minor nature of the injury. As the severity of the physical injuries increases, so does the likelihood that a mandated reporter will view the injury as child abuse and report the case. Red marks on the wrist as a result of having hands taped together (perhaps a 5 on the scale shown in the figure) might get reported, whereas second-degree burns on the hands (a 7 or 8 on the scale) would surely elicit a response to report the injury. As the severity of the abuse increases, the level of nurturing decreases. Accepting more severe injuries to children as normal is one danger of living in a society with escalating rates of violence.
Role of Experiences
Nurturing and abusive parenting patterns are learned through experience. Experiences have either a positive or a negative effect on the development of the self (see figure 2).
Furthermore, human learning occurs on two levels: cognitive (information, facts, and knowledge) and affective (feelings). Experiences not only provide information and knowledge, but they also provoke feelings and influence attitudes (see figure 3).
When experiences are positive or pleasant, so is the impact on the self. One is left with desirable information, perceptions, and memories of the experience and with desirable feelings of comfort and pleasure. The experiences contribute to the overall health and personal development of the individual. A lifetime of positive experiences clearly can have a lasting positive effect on an individual's thoughts and feelings.
The same theory and outcome holds true with undesirable experiences. The detrimental impact of such experiences can also last a lifetime. Whether positive or negative, the quality of a person's experiences can be observed in his or her behavior. As figure 4 illustrates, what one experiences gives rise to how one behaves, which in turn gives rise to new experiences. If abuse is dominant in the life experiences of a developing child, the elements of abusive parenting can become entrenched in the child's personality, thoughts, perceptions, memories, feelings, and behaviors.
Behavior and Self-Image
In general, self-image consists of thoughts about oneself (self-concept) and feelings about oneself (self-esteem). How one is treated during the process of growing up (experiences) has a strong influence on one's overall self-image.
The experience of nurturing has been shown to exert a positive influence on self-image and self-worth. The experience of child abuse has been shown to have a detrimental impact on self-image, which in turn gives rise to a feeling of low self-worth. An individual's sense of self-worth has been shown to be the best predictor of how he or she will treat others. Those who value themselves and treat themselves with respect predictably display similar behavior toward others. The relationship between self-worth and the worth of others is a critical concept in the treatment and prevention of child abuse and neglect (Cohn, 1979).
