home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- Newsgroups: misc.kids
- Path: sparky!uunet!charon.amdahl.com!pacbell.com!ames!saimiri.primate.wisc.edu!usenet.coe.montana.edu!news.u.washington.edu!stein.u.washington.edu!gwynne
- From: gwynne@stein.u.washington.edu (Kristan Geissel)
- Subject: Re: Authoritarian Parents (was 20/20 and spanking)
- Message-ID: <1992Nov16.204739.23746@u.washington.edu>
- Sender: news@u.washington.edu (USENET News System)
- Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
- References: <1992Nov16.164048.15233@jetsun.weitek.COM>
- Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 20:47:39 GMT
- Lines: 35
-
- In article <1992Nov16.164048.15233@jetsun.weitek.COM> robert@jetsun.weitek.COM (Robert Plamondon) writes:
- >
- >Here are some hallmarks of authoritarian parents I have known, which
- >may help differentiate them from other kinds:
- >
- >1. Authoritarian parents take offense if their kids do something
- > successfully, but in a way that differed from their instructions.
- > That is, authoritarian parents discourage and even punish independent
- > thinking, even when it's successful.
- >
- >2. Authoritarian parents will punish children for things that might
- > not even provoke a comment from other people.
- >3. Authoritarian parents talk about being "forced" to punish "for the
- > principle of the thing," but can't articulate what principle they're
- > defending.
- >4. Authoritarian parents get more confused and desperate as their children
- > get older and more independent, as their ability to control (or even
- > influence) their children declines.
- >
- Boy, does this ever sound like my mother. I still haven't figured out
- what style my dad followed; generally he followed/backed my mom. The
- great thing for my daughter is that I was aware of this parenting
- debacle - not knowing a name for it though - long ago and realized that
- the single most harmful effect of #1 was/is my inability to follow
- through on anything because whatever I did wasn't quite right while I
- was growing up. I do have to admit though that some of the loudest
- self talking I do is to remind myself that Gwynne can do something
- the best way for her, not the way I expect it to be done. Sometimes
- I can barely hear myself think because I am yelling so loudly at
- myself :). I can also remember being punished under rule 3 more often
- than not and I know that I am not doing that to Gwynne, thank goodness.
-
- Kristan
- gwynne@u.washington.edu
-
-