Parenting Discipline Cross-Culturally

https://tinyurl.com/hwyyddpz

Introduction

Wondering about different ways to discipline your child? You’re not the only one! There are numerous ways in which parents across different cultures choose to discipline their children. Not to scare you away, but these parenting discipline choices can affect a child’s successes and challenges throughout the rest of their life. In this blog, I will be defining parental discipline as forms of addressing behavior through chores and responsibilities, rewards, punishments, communication, and family involvement. I will also explore how differing forms of parenting are split up by low or high warmth, how they’re represented across cultures, and the overall effects that they may have on children (Helwig et al., 2013; MacDonald, 1992; Prevoo & LeMonda, 2017; Kiviniemi et al., 2020).

Why Discipline Matters

According to Lansford et al. (2016), a common parental goal exists across all countries: raising children to be productive and successful members of society. Wouldn’t you agree? Parenting practices used to achieve this common goal, however, vary greatly based upon cultural values and beliefs. More specifically, discipline techniques used by parents across the world range from high warmth to low warmth. High warmth discipline practices include giving rewards, encouragement, and praise to children to reinforce positive behaviors. Low warmth discipline practices, such as corporal punishment, time out, and verbal criticism, are used by parents to correct negative behaviors in children. These contrasting discipline styles are used to discover developmental and cultural commonalities and differences in the field (Helwig et al., 2013; MacDonald, 1992; Lansford & Deater-Deckard, 2012; Lansford et al., 2016).

What Is High Warmth Parenting?

High warmth used in parenting is presented as a reward system formed to create parental investment in children and close family relationships. Parenting discipline practices, focused on high warmth, play a motivational role in children through facilitation of compliance and acceptance of adult values (MacDonald, 1992). Parents who use high warmth methods to discipline their children provide rewards, encouragement, and praise to their children when they want to reinforce their behavior. Ideally, warm reinforcement increases the probability that the child will repeat the desired behavior in the future. Conclusions drawn from previous literature find similar patterns between high warmth parenting and child outcomes involving empathy and prosocial behavior (Helwig et al., 2013; MacDonald, 1992; Lansford & Deater-Deckard, 2012). This may be due to child observation of parents’ prosocial parenting behaviors and the activation of mirror neurons.

https://tinyurl.com/wtbmmwvj

Effects of High Warmth Parenting

MacDonald (1992) claims that warm parenting is a key motivational role in children because it facilitates compliance, the acceptance of adult values, and personality development. According to MacDonald (1992), high warmth parenting is the most productive because it even seems to make people nicer. Although a general claim, this evidence is supported by the concept of reciprocated affection and its influence on children’s behavior (MacDonald, 1992). In another study, Lansford and Deater-Deckard (2012) examined children’s behavior responses to parents’ methods of teaching children good behavior and responding to misbehavior. The researchers found that across twenty-four developing countries, the most frequently reported discipline technique was explaining to the child why something was wrong. These types of explanations are considered high warmth parenting practices. Socializing children with explanations for why their misbehaviors are wrong were shown to contribute to children’s empathy, prosocial behavior, and moral internalization of parents’ messages (Lansford and Deater-Deckard, 2012). These results are similar to MacDonald’s claims that parental discipline based on warmth leads to more positive child outcomes.

What Is Low Warmth Parenting?

Low warmth methods of parenting include removing privileges, being psychologically aggressive (i.e. yelling, name calling, threatening), and being physically violent (i.e. slapping, beating with an object). The prevalence of low warmth parenting methods varies widely across countries, based on beliefs surrounding harsh discipline and violence (Lansford & Deater-Deckard, 2012). Parents who discipline their children through low warmth methods use punishment and undesirable consequences to weaken the chances of the child repeating the undesirable behavior in the future. Lansord and Deater-Deckard (2012) claim that wide variability across countries exists in the use of violence. This wide variability is due to varied values and beliefs regarding the best way to produce productive and successful children. Across twenty-four developing countries, 20% of caregivers reported that their children had been spanked in the last month and 20% reported that privileges had been taken away from their child in the last month (Lansford & Deater-Deckard, 2012).

Lansford and Deater-Deckard (2012) also highlighted different parenting discipline patterns across cultures. Wide variability across countries was shown when caregivers were asked to report aggression or violence toward their child in the previous month. For example, every caregiver in Mongolia reported some type of violent response to their children in the last month, whereas only 51% of caregivers in Albania reported they had responded violently (Lansford and Deater-Deckard, 2012). When measuring psychological aggression, very different patterns across countries were shown again. Only about 7% of caregivers in Albania reported using psychological aggression toward their children, whereas 89% of caregivers in Yemen reported they had. This variation is likely based upon varying beliefs regarding the necessity of physical punishment when disciplining children. Parents often build these beliefs based on their upbringings, values, and settings (Rogoff, 2003).

https://tinyurl.com/rbt3r394

Effects of Low Warmth Parenting

According to Helwig et al. (2013), parental discipline based on shaming or love withdrawal is increasingly believed to have detrimental effects on children’s feelings of self-worth and psychological well-being. The results of this study show very different patterns across two cultures: Canada and China. For example, Chinese participants rated love withdrawal less negatively than Canadian participants. In addition, there was evidence that Chinese participants viewed the goals of mothers differently than European-Canadian parents (Helwig et al., 2013). These differing long-term goals for their children may contribute to different choices in parenting discipline practices. Although the researchers chose to examine two cultures where the populations are fundamentally different, there would be several benefits to comparing populations from more than just two different countries. So, the next time your child has to be disciplined…take a moment to think about your approach and the effects that may come with it.

Activity: What the CDC Says: Creating Structure and Rules at Home

Click the image for the link to the activity. Enjoy!

References

Helwig, C.C., To, S., Wang, Q., Liu, C. and Yang, S. (2014), Judgments and Reasoning

About Parental Discipline Involving Induction and Psychological Control in China and

Canada. Child Dev, 85, 1150-1167. 10.1111/cdev.12183.

Kiviniemi, A. A. I., Koivumaa-Honkanen, H.-T. J., Heikkinen, H. P., Moilanen, I. K., & Ebeling, H. E. (2020). Is a harsh childhood growth environment reflected in parental images and emotional distress in adulthood? Current Psychology: A Journal for Diverse Perspectives on Diverse Psychological Issues. https://doiorg.ezproxy.lib.calpoly.edu/10.1007/s12144-020-00696-2.

Lansford, J. E., Criss, M. M., Laird, R. D., Shaw, D. S., Pettit, G. S., Bates, J. E., & Dodge, K. A. (2011). Reciprocal relations between parents' physical discipline and children's externalizing behavior during middle childhood and adolescence. Development and psychopathology, 23(1), 225–238. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579410000751.

Lansford, J. E., & Deater-Deckard, K. (2012). Child Rearing Discipline and Violence in Developing Countries. Child Development, 83(1), 62-75. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2011.01676.x.

MacDonald, K. (1992). Warmth as a Developmental Construct: An Evolutionary Analysis.

Child Development, 63(4), 753-773. https://doi.org/10.2307/1131231.

Prevoo, M. J. L., & Tamis-LeMonda, C. S. (2017). Parenting and globalization in western

countries: Explaining differences in parent–child interactions. Current Opinion in Psychology, 15, 33–39. https://doi-org.ezproxy.lib.calpoly.edu/10.1016/j.copsyc.2017.02.003.

Rogoff, B. (2003). The cultural nature of human development. Oxford University Press.