SMH on Parenting

A new study in the United Kingdom has found that children whose parents take a "tough love" approach are better prepared to achieve in life.

The research by think tank Demos tracked the lives of 9,000 families over eight years.

The head of the research team, Sonia Sodha, says the tough love style of parenting combines warmth and discipline, and is far more important in a child's success than parents' income or social background.

"Parents are able to set rules, apply them consistently and fairly and that means that children know what the boundaries are to their behaviour," she said.

Ms Sodha says tough love parenting helps children to develop key skills such as emotion control and empathy.

"They are skills that we've termed character capabilities, and what I mean when I say that is skills like self-regulation, so being able to regulate your own emotions in difficult circumstances," she said.

"Skills like empathy, say being able to understand how other people are feeling - which is a really key skill for being able to develop good relationships with others - and skills like applications, so children being able to concentrate on the task, to be able to motivate themselves.

"This set of character capabilities are the skills that are really important in enabling children to make the most of school when they get there."


Wealthy parents

Ms Sodha said the research showed wealthier parents were likely to use the tough love parenting style.

"Parents from poor backgrounds, wealthy backgrounds, average backgrounds, they are just as likely to show warmth and affection to their children," she said.

"Where we notice the difference however was in terms of discipline, so in the ability of parents to set rules and apply them consistently. And what we found was that was a more common trait amongst parents from wealthier backgrounds."

Ms Sodha says several factors contribute to the trend.

"The first I think is the changing nature of society," she said.

"We all know we are becoming increasingly consumerist ... and if you look at the amount of direct advertising that is directed at children, that has gone up a lot in previous years.

"And what this advertising tends to do is target children to get them to pester their parents for particular goods and items, and that makes it very difficult for some parents to say no."


Family structure

Ms Sodha says a second factor is the combination of income and family structures.

"They probably all do impact on parenting style, so we know that if you are a parent who is parenting alone or if you are a poor parent, you are under a lot more stress than a wealthier parent or someone who is parenting as part of a supportive couple, so that also is important I think," she said.

Ms Sodha also says the study does not aim to tell parents exactly what they should do in every situation.

"That won't work and government doesn't know best," she said.

"What we think the implications are is that government should be ensuring that early years services ... need to be geared to helping parents develop the skills they need in order to be able to give their kids the best start in life possible."

Rick Gamache on Kids

Justin Taylor|10:46 am CT

Questions for Kids
Last night during the conversation with John Piper, John MacArthur, and me, Piper mentioned how helped he was by the kinds of questions that Rick Gamache (senior pastor of Sovereign Grace Fellowship) regularly asks his kids. Rick gave me permission to post them here:

?How are your devotions?
?What is God teaching you?
?In your own words, what is the gospel?
?Is there a specific sin you?re aware of that you need my help defeating?
?Are you more aware of my encouragement or my criticism?
?What?s daddy most passionate about?
?Do I act the same at church as I do when I?m at home?
?Are you aware of my love for you?
?Is there any way I?ve sinned against you that I?ve not repented of?
?Do you have any observations for me?
?How am I doing as a dad?
?How have Sunday?s sermons impacted you?
?Does my relationship with mom make you excited to be married?
?(On top of these things, with my older kids, I?m always inquiring about their relationship with their friends and making sure God and his gospel are the center of those relationship. And I look for every opportunity to praise their mother and increase their appreciation and love for her.)

Miranda Devine on Narcissism

What's more, narcissism is on the increase, becoming a pervasive condition of society, according to two American psychologists, Jean Twenge and W. Keith Campbell, who published a book this year, The Narcissism Epidemic.They include a long-term study of 37,000 American college students, in which the incidence of narcissistic personality traits increased on a scale rivalling obesity, accelerating in the past decade.
In 1982, 15 per cent of students scored highly for narcissistic personality traits. By 2006 the percentage had climbed to 25. Twenge claims only 12 per cent of students in the 1950s agreed with the statement ''I am an important person''; by the late 1980s that percentage had climbed to 80. The reason for the explosion in narcissism in recent years, according to the Melbourne adolescent psychologist Michael Carr-Gregg, is not just the self-esteem movement but poor parenting.
"Parents are becoming increasingly self absorbed [believing] 'the single most important thing in the world is for me to work like a dog to get the house, the car and the holiday house' and don't ? realise all their kids want is to be loved and to have one-on-one time with their parents.'' He says an "epidemic of poor parenting" is to blame for a drastic rise in psychological problems in young people. "Generation Y is being ravaged by depression, anxiety disorders and stress disorders."
For narcissistic personality disorder to take root, a person has to be born with a genetic "template" for over-sensitivity and over-reactivity. "Then something has to happen."
Carr-Gregg says parental abandonment, coupled with invalidation of the child's corresponding emotional pain, triggers the disorder. "If you grew up in an environment with time-poor parents, you are brought up in a Lord of the Flies [type of] emotional silo by other disaffected young people. It's the psychologically blind leading the blind.
"I see ? kids who are overindulged from a very early age ? and become incapable of delayed gratification. When I meet these kids in later life they tend to exaggerate their achievements and talents, tend to believe they are special and unique and interesting. They require excessive amounts of admiration and if they don't get it, they'll wipe you off the face of the planet."