By Daniel Flint, MA
To be a parent is to worry about your parenting. But things can go right just as easily as they can go wrong. Each child, no matter their age or gender, has unique needs, but a healthy relationship with a parent can support them all.
The Research on Raising Great Kids
Not all kids are raised by two parents, or necessarily by their biological parents at all, and these children are not at a disadvantage. But a large body of research on biological child-and-parent relationships within and across genders has highlighted a range of “needs” mothers and fathers or other guardians are able to fulfill for children. Each represents one factor in what is always a complex connection between parent and child. If one of these items goes unmet, it does not mean that a child is in jeopardy or cannot have a satisfying relationship with parents or guardians, or with others.
What A Daughter Needs From Her Mom
Self-confidence and body acceptance. Research suggests that a mother’s sense of shame and rejection of her body is closely connected to her daughter’s lack of confidence in her own body. Specifically, mothers who performed frequent surveillance of their own body (checking in the mirror, examining flaws, etc.) were more likely to raise daughters who did the same. This research team encouraged mothers to demonstrate to their daughters that “an adult woman’s body is acceptable” and to remember that body image–related behaviors may be closely mirrored by daughters, especially if they resemble or share physical traits with their mothers.
Emotional burden-sharing and physical comfort. In a study that measured stress levels using galvanic skin response, teenage girls were instructed to make a 3-minute impromptu educational speech, to simulate social stress and anxiety. Meanwhile, the girls’ mothers were instructed either to hold their daughter’s hand while she spoke or to sit silently next to her. Evidence from galvanic skin response data suggested that when a mother held her daughter’s hand, the daughter did not experience as much anxiety during her speech as daughters whose mothers sat silently beside them. However, in mother-daughter pairs with reported high relationship quality, the emotional burden-sharing effect was felt even when physical contact was not present. The researchers concluded that confidence in a solid mother-daughter relationship may protect against emotional threats as robustly as does actual supportive physical touch.
Authoritative parenting. Parenting styles are typically categorized as authoritarian, authoritative, permissive, or uninvolved. Authoritative parents are pragmatic and flexible, setting clear boundaries but encouraging independence and employing supportive, not punitive, dicipline. In a study of adult daughters, authoritative parenting in childhood was linked to the development of positive cognitive schemas—how someone thinks about herself and the world. For example, daughters who reported being raised by authoritative mothers were significantly less likely to hold schemas related to shame or defectiveness, social isolation, dependence on others, and external locus of control (the idea that one has minimal control over one’s life experience), which have all been linked to the development of mental and behavioral health problems.
High, but not impossible, expectations. Researchers who tracked a group of daughters for over 20 years found that a mother’s belief in her 10-year-old daughter’s ability to finish schooling on time predicted the daughter’s self-reported sense of control over her life when she was 30. This effect remained significant even after researchers statistically controlled for ethnicity, career choice, intellectual ability, mental health problems, socio-economic status, and parental family structure, among other variables. This is a simple strategy moms can incorporate into their parenting: Believe in your daughters, let them know it, and hold them to high standards. They may come to thank you, even if it’s not until adulthood.
What A Son Needs From His Dad
Time. It’s well established that positive parenting behaviors are protective factors for kids against the onset of both externalizing (disobedience, aggression) and internalizing (anxiety, depression, and other mood disorders) problems. In a recent study examining these protective factors, married fathers who reported frequently shopping, playing a sport, going to entertainment events, playing games, cooking, and/or watching television with their kids were more likely to have children who did not exhibit either externalizing or internalizing symptoms—an effect that was even more pronounced in sons than in daughters.
“The Talk.” Any trusted adult could talk to boys about sex at an appropriate age, but research shows that for boys with a father in the home, this conversation is typically facilitated by him. Studies suggest, however, that fathers experience a low sense of self-efficacy when it comes to having these conversations with their kids—for example, evidence implies that fathers feel especially incompetent in explaining to their sons how to say no to sex. Researchers fear this parental insecurity will limit the amount of information and guidance boys receive.
An upstanding, law-abiding example. According to longitudinal research on thousands of fathers and their sons, men who break the law are far more likely to have fathers who did the same. Among sons of law-abiding fathers, only 4 percent were convicted of more than one delinquent act. In contrast, about 40 percent of sons of law-breaking fathers committed more than one such crime. The authors of this study were careful to caution that a wide variety of socio-cultural factors also play a role in increasing or decreasing the likelihood of delinquent behavior.
Affection and tenderness. Research shows that children of dads who treated them affectionately as an infant scored higher on standardized measures of cognitive ability in reading and math at age 4, findings that held true regardless of ethnicity. Specifically, a dad’s frequency of kissing and hugging his son at age 2 was one of the factors loading onto a construct of “warmth” that positively predicted his son’s scores.
What A Son Needs From His Mom
Non-coercive parenting. Coercive parenting refers to a common cycle in which a parent directs a child’s behavior, is met with refusal, and increases the severity of the demand on the child, who responds with arguing, yelling, or acting out until finally the parent gives up, which reinforces the initial misbehavior. In a large sample of young boys and their mothers followed for more than 10 years, researchers found that boys with mothers who employed coercive parenting experienced higher rates of conduct problems and social problems, including rejection by other children, while more positive, adaptive parenting strategies helped boys develop positive social skills and a stronger sense of self.
Minimal conflict and maximum warmth. “Warmth” does not mean permissiveness or over-indulgence: Warm mothers are loving, firm, kind, and invested in their son’s development. But warmth, like conflict, is not a variable that is entirely under the control of a parent. Still, moms who work hard to minimize conflict and maximize the warmth they share with their son, research suggests, are more apt to set their child up for developing healthy social skills like making friends, while lessening the boy’s likelihood of engaging in such behavior as acting out in school.
Encouraging executive function. Modeling is an important part of positive parenting. A “do as I say, not as I do” philosophy is not a firm foundation on which to teach the next generation about life skills. In a study about what attributes helped mothers foster their son’s ability to self-regulate—which broadly encompasses self-control, decision-making, and emotion-management skills—researchers discovered two key factors. Women who maintained a trusting, attached relationship with their son aided in the establishment of such executive control. Conversely, mothers with antagonistic parenting practices, such as undermining or manipulation, had sons who did not as readily display these behaviors.
Avoidance of harsh criticism. Mothers’ harsh criticism of their young son, research has found, predicts symptoms of oppositional defiance: Moms who are more vocally critical are more likely to have a son who misbehaves. It is, of course, true that boys who misbehave are more likely to elicit criticism from their mother, but harsh criticism generally doesn’t help. When moms employ harsh criticism, they do not effectively target their son’s misbehavior. Interestingly, the same link with misbehavior was found for emotional over-involvement—defined as extreme over-protective and self-sacrificing behaviors.
What a Daughter Needs from Her Dad
Permission to be a child. Responsible parents should be careful not to rely on their children to assuage their own psychological insecurities. Evidence from a sample of over 500 adult women asked to recall their childhood with their dad suggests that many experienced “parentification,” the maladaptive process in which a child begins to take on typical parental caregiving responsibilities and feels obliged to meet her parent’s own psychological needs, such as for validation. For these women, adult romantic relationship satisfaction and relationship security were lower than for counterparts who grew up without feeling parentified.
Acceptance, availability, and positive affect. A study that compared a group of depressed adolescent girls with a never-depressed cohort highlighted the importance of the father-daughter relationship. Girls who were diagnosed with depression were significantly more likely to report that they felt rejected or neglected by their father or had a cold, detached relationship with him. These findings held regardless of whether the girls’ parents were married or separated. Furthermore, while fathers’ own reports indicated that they agreed with their daughter’s assessments, fathers of depressed teen girls did not seem to recognize the lack of warmth and parental attachment felt by their daughter—likely due to poor communication between them.
Shared physical activity. A group of fathers was trained using a program called Dads and Daughters Exercising and Empowered (DADEE), which focused on improving their basic positive parenting skills, maximizing their investment in their daughter’s well-being, and engaging with her in active, collaborative, fitness-related play. Compared to a control group, nine months later, daughters who participated in the training group experienced larger increases in social-emotional competency, decision-making skills, social awareness, relationship skills, personal responsibility, and self-management skills.
Closeness, reliability, and permission for autonomy. In an investigation of three groups of women—one diagnosed with an eating disorder (ED), one diagnosed with a non-ED psychiatric disorder, and one with no such diagnoses—researchers had participants recall the nature of their relationship with their father while growing up and answer a range of quantitative and narrative response questions. Results indicated that women who had a psychiatric disorder were more likely to describe their father as less caring, overprotective, unkind, and punitive; women who described their father as being high in control but low in affection were more likely to restrain their food intake, express concerns about their physical appearance, and experience depression, as compared to peers who reported having relatively caring fathers.
Daniel Flint, M.A., is a doctoral candidate in Bowling Green State University’s clinical psychology Ph.D. program and a doctoral intern at Western Youth Services in Orange County, California.
Originally published at Psychology Today