Let’s Talk About The 4 Important Parenting Psychological Studies Every Parent Should Know!

Parenting teens can be really tough at times, more because you can’t keep up with their constantly changing mood and emotions. Everyone around you will be the ‘expert’ and tell you what to do and how to do it, but hardly even one of the advices work. However, what most parents fail to realize is that they need to look at things the way their teens do.

When it comes to understanding a teen, instead of being the wise and responsible parent, you need to think like a confused, and self-assumed-adult teen who is emotional too. Understanding their psyche can help you a lot in figuring things out with your child. Here are some of the important teen psychological studies you should know:

1. Giving your child priority is worth it:

Researchers have found out that child-centric behaviors are extremely fruitful. A 2013 study by Ashton-James found out that parents, who gave their children the most attention and priority, were happier and contended with their life. Also, child-care activities were also found to be associated with positivity.

“These findings suggest that the more care and attention people give to others, the more happiness and meaning they experience. From this perspective, the more invested parents are in their children’s well-being — that is, the more ‘child centric’ parents are — the more happiness and meaning they will derive from parenting.”

2. Helicopter parenting leads to depression:

There is a fine line between being protective and being a helicopter parent.

A study by Schiffrin, asked 297 undergrad students how they felt about their parents’ behavior. The study found that the students who had helicopter parents were more depressed than others. They also had lower levels of relatedness, competence and autonomy.

“Parents should keep in mind how developmentally appropriate their involvement is and learn to adjust their parenting style when their children feel that they are hovering too closely.”

3. Doing chores together develop positive atmosphere:

If children see parents as one unit, they are more likely to have fewer issues in future. One point of disagreement between parents is often chores – a knack to achieve marital peace is to do chores together. A study by Galovan found that:

“When partners perform their chores at the same time–no matter who is doing what–both people are more satisfied with the division of labor.”

4. Why siblings are poles apart?

If you have more than 1 child, you will notice that how different they are from each other. It is at times curious that how two people having 50% of the same genetic code can be so different. In fact, a study by Plomin and Daniels (1987), found that

“Siblings have no more in common in their personalities than two completely unrelated strangers”.

This means that a parenting strategy working with one child, might not work on the other – just the ‘sweet’ challenges of being a parent.

Nobody prepares you for this much!

Parenting is a different experience for everyone, what your mother did to shape your personality might not work on your child. Don’t worry, you’re not doing anything wrong- you just have your own right way of raising your kid. Do what you think is best for them and make this process simpler with parental control apps. Best of luck!