As long as the children are healthy and taken care of, it shouldn’t matter what style is being used. However, studies are always being done to look at child development, and what can help or hinder it. Child development is something that is still being looked at very closely, and this includes parenting styles and the impact they can have.
Tough love is something that most understand, and maybe have experienced in their lifetime, and it also may be a tool that parents are using right now with their children. However, what are the impacts this can have on child development? Let’s take a deeper look and see just how this can affect your children.
What Is Tough Love?
According to Better Help, tough love is love that is expressed in a stern manner, and it is meant to promote responsible behavior. It is often used in parenting to teach children a lesson, but the hard way. It is when parents are “mean,” but they claim they are doing it out of love because they want their children to learn a lesson, but it may be difficult for them to know the difference.
In the parenting world, this is seen a lot in the authoritarian style of parenting. This does not mean that the parent is rude, mean, to the child, or harmful in any way, but they are stricter and enforce more rules. There are some who abide by this law, and it works for them, but for the mom who may be concerned about it, there are some things to know – and it may not all be bad.
What Does The Science Say?
Since there is no guidebook on parenting, parents may often turn to studies that were done to see how it impacts children as they grow up. According to Education Connections, there was one comprehensive study that was done on tough love and child development, and it was done on 9,000 families in the UK. The researchers wanted to see the long-term impacts of this style of parenting.
The study found that tough love on a child could lead to impacts on their social skills. It showed that children raised with tough love were more likely to develop empathy, showed greater resiliency, and had better control over their emotions. The researchers stated that this was due to the parents being able to balance warmth and discipline.
What Does The “Other” Science State?
There will always be another side to the same coin, and there have been studies that have looked at the negative impacts of tough love on children. Other studies have found that children who grow up with this kind of parenting struggle with their self-esteem and aggression. They also reported that they seemed less mature than other children. Researchers seem to agree that this balance is difficult to manage, and there is a “fine line” between what is tough love and what is just bullying. This could be the hardest part of this for parents.
Does It Impact The Relationship With The Parents?
When mom raises her children, she is likely trying to make sure that they are nurturing the relationship her children have with her. She wants to make sure that her children feel close to her, and that they come to her if they have any problems that they need help with. Moms may worry that showing too much tough love could have an impact on this relationship.
This again goes back to finding the balance, and the line between tough love and bullying, but according to Parenting for Brain, the impact may come with what type of mom you are. There are traits of tough love parents that mom will want to avoid because they can have the most negative impact on child development.
One thing mom wants to do is make sure that they are not too demanding of their children. While tough love calls for respect and obedience, it is important to balance that with love and affection. When you have too much of one and not enough of the other, it can have a negative impact on child development.
It is also important to make sure your child understands why they have to follow the rules, and why you are instituting “tough love,” so that they can navigate it and really benefit from this style of parenting.
Sources: Better Help, Education Connections, Parenting For Brain