The Effects of Too Much Freedom (Permissive Parenting)

Interesting research. Parenting styles are always very interesting because they apply to nearly every person on this planet at some point in time. This topic however, I feel, is very hard to get accurate information about because it cannot be measured accurately. How can you measure something like a child's personality only due to the parenting style. This is one of the many things in psychology that may be better left alone. The countless factors involved leave us with nothing but a shot in the dark on the effects of different parent styles.

I found your post pretty interesting because I know a lot of people who have parents that use the permissive parenting technique. Some of the kids with parents that use this can be defined exactly by the traits you have found in the two articles. However, one of my best friends' parents are quite permissive and their kids are honor roll students and have none of the traits listed above. It's definitely a different technique of parenting compared to my parents but sometimes it can work.

I understand that the parenting technique and certain behaviors do correlate however I think it lacks causation. There may be other factors in a child's life that impact personality traits other than the parenting technique. It is interesting to think about how a certain technique of parenting can shape a child's personality, it makes me wonder what other factors can have such a large impact on personality development.

Interesting about the discrepancy over sociability, though the rest makes sense about how it probably wouldn't be the best way to parent. It's good to have things like boundaries be reinforced because they really are more important than one would realize. They kinda set the tone for how to exist in the world and without good ones....well....it would be really hard for both the person/kid and everyone else around them.

This is a really interesting topic. I think there is so many contributing factors into how a child's personality turns out that a significant amount can not be completely devoted to just parenting styles. It is easy to conclude that it does have an impact on children but to what extent can you confirm that? It's a hard area to study because there are so many things to consider. The three different styles all have their own positives but it is probably safe to say that passive may not be the best style because the negative effects are probably a lot greater than the positive ones in most cases.

I love seeing these parenting styles in real life. It turns out that my two oldest sisters passive parents. Out of all my nieces and nephews, the kids in those two families are the hardest to deal with. They lack discipline and politeness, so it's hard to do anything with them. They're personality is hard to reverse, too. Even if my sisters wanted to change their parenting style, I think it's too late and it wouldn't be any good!

I think this is definately a part of the nature vs nurture debate. Though kids may sometimes display these qualities growing up with a permissive parent, it is not always the case (such as with myself). Granted I have the confounding variable of my mom (who is definately authoritarian), so perhaps the result was an authoritative upbringing, but nonetheless, I do believe this will vary from child to child.

I thought this topic of parenting styles was extremely intriguing because it has been so prevalent through my years of schooling. I have friends whose parents followed the permissive style of parenting and most of them did very poorly in school, some didn't even make it to college, due to their lack of boundaries and self discipline. On the other hand I had also had friends whose parents practiced authoritarian parenting, most were extremely sheltered and naive. Once they got to college they went crazy and it has come back to negatively affect them, mostly in their grades. With no one there to watch over them like a hawk, they were freedom-hungry.

I would be very interested in learning the rough numbers of kids raised in this style across social classes (upper class, middle class, lower class). Which have more or less children raised in this manner. Also do the children raised in this manner tend to parent their children the same way? Since they were raised with so much freedom and used to having things their way do they raise their children in a more authoritarian manner? I also found it interesting that it has such a great effect on the child's out come in their social life and I can see why. I wonder where children raised in this style end up, do most end up going to college? Do they have a lower or higher IQ than most kids raised in an authoritarian or authoritative home?