Parenting 102- HW 58

Part 3:
The perspective that caught my attention the most was Sean J's parent centered way of parenting. In the majority of the families I have seen, children are being raised based on their needs. Where the parent's issues come after the child's. Sean J's way seems to allow the child to learn respect for other people at a very young age. In addition, the marital relationship is strong which sets a good example for the children and becomes the basis of a strong family.

Another interesting idea about parenting that came up when Mr. M came in to talk to us. He discussed how working class parents raise their children compared to how upper class parnts raise their children. Generally, working class parents accomplish natural growth in the child whereas the middle/upper class see children as projects to be developed. This difference between the social classes in how children are raised makes me wonder, which way is more effective, how do the results in how the children grow up to be vary?


Part 4:
This unit helped me to make sense of my own experience growing up with working class parents. Based on what was discussed on Mr. M's visit, parents in working class seem to be more leanient and natural when raising children. I was basically raised as my parents were, with some guidelines but with the freedom to make my own choices. ( which makes me wonder, do the majoirty of people raise children the way we were raised? If so, how can the cycle be broken?) The way I was raised seemed to be a more natural way of growth when compared to the developmental project that middle and upper class parents have to raise their children.

An insight that I think would be helpful for me as a parent, is to see how the type of parent affects the outcome of the child, shown in the Baumrind's article, there are three main ways of parenting and each method has different results. Looking at this from the perspective of parenting, one can see the pros and cons to these different ways of parenting. In addition, it helps to see that when a parent choses possibly one or a mixure of parenting methods, they see what problems the child would have to face and thus they would have to deal with as the parent.