Tell me how you are and I will tell you how you cry

BarcelonaIf one thing is clear, it is that parenting is not an easy task. How many times have we promised ourselves that we would not do something as parents and ended up falling on all fours? Or quite the opposite, how many times did we have a clear idea of the path we wanted to follow but the situations or challenges we encountered forced us to deviate? Be that as it may, Leire Vázquez, a specialist in clinical psychology at the Sant Joan de Déu Hospital in Barcelona, makes it clear that the role of parents is key to fostering the skills that are important for their children when they become adults.

Surely many parents would sign up for their children to be happy, resilient, empathetic, respectful, have tools to manage the problems that arise throughout their lives, or have a good social network. But all these skills, Vázquez recalls, are built day by day from the difficulties of parenting and the type of fatherhood or motherhood that is exercised.

Starting from this premise, how should children be accompanied to promote their emotional well-being during childhood? The American psychologist Diana Baumrind, along with other authors, explains Vázquez, has defined four styles of fatherhood or motherhood and their effect on emotional well-being.

Authoritarian

They are parents who set limits and exercise excessive control. It is a style characterized by aPermissive

When parents focus on being excessively warm with the will to put the child at the center, but, on the other hand, without setting limits or supervising. According to Vázquez, it is a style that can foster feelings of belonging and better self-esteem and, therefore, emotional well-being. But it also has its downside: the lack of limits and supervision causes insecurity, little containment of children, and does not offer experiences where minors can learn to tolerate frustration.

Negligent

When parents do not exercise any type of control or supervision of their children, which ends up generating in them an experience of rejection and lack of protection. It is a style that clearly does not promote emotional well-being. 

Democratic

They are families that set limits and supervise minors with warmth and affection. This, according to the expert from Sant Joan de Déu Hospital, is the style par excellence that is related to emotional well-being, as it creates structure, but, at the same time, fosters communication and warm bonds with children, increases the sense of belonging, and makes minors participants in decisions, makes them feel useful, and empowers them.