Leavitt, Amanda; Harris, Heather; Szanter, Kathryn; Stokes, Alexis (Weber State University)
Faculty Advisor: Dunn, Charles (Weber State University, Child and Family Studies); Hubler, Daniel (Weber State University, Child and Family Studies); Osai, Keith (Weber State University, Child and Family Studies)
How a child is parented can influence their success socially, mentally, physically, and emotionally. Agarwal (2017) states that "Parenting plays the most important part in any child's life, it can help a child by teaching them to deal with people, situations and adapt to a better living standard" (p.1335). Parents help form worldviews, shape a child's attitude towards personal achievement, teach how to approach adversity in life, and satisfy their needs whether it be psychological and/or physiological. Much is known about how the base of one's childhood is built upon one's primary caregivers' parenting style, however, less is known about the intergenerational transmission of parenting philosophies.
The current study was designed to assess how parenting styles affect child delinquency and bullying. Through social media invitations and snowball sampling, 200 people accepted invitations to participate in an online survey incorporating both open-ended and quantitative items. Participants were asked to reflect on how they were parented and then state what they have maintained or changed in their own parenting styles. Considering the rich nature of the responses to the qualitative items, a corroborative narrative came together through personal stories.
Through thematic analysis, several themes emerged. When participants reported being parented with: open communication, flexibility, love, trust, and higher expectations they wanted to keep those traits. When asked what participants carried on from their parents one participant stated, "Cherish the family and the moments we have together." Additionally, 28% (n = 113) of our participants shared the importance of spending quality time together. However, when participants' parents did not display those traits, most participants indicated that similar traits, namely communication, flexibility, love, quality time, trust, and higher expectations were desired in their homes. The findings from the current study can be used to inform future parenting research assessing influence on subsequent generations.