Lesson 2: Psychosocial Causes of Abnormal Behaviour

Parenting

Some parents may neglect their children and, hence, deprive them of adequate contact and interaction. Other parents, however, interact with their children, but they do so in unhealthy ways. Parents can be overprotective and restrictive or overpermissive and indulgent. Parents can also be unrealistic and irrational. Restrictiveness, for example, may promote well-controlled and socialized behaviour. Restrictiveness may also nurture fear, dependency, and repressed hostility on the part of the child. Overindulged children raised in a permissive home may be selfish, inconsiderate, and demanding. When they mature, they may be shocked to learn that they will not get everything they want!

Children need to have realistic demands placed on them - neither too high nor too low. Parents who pressure their children to succeed in everything predispose their children for certain failure because no one person is an expert at all things. If a child raises a grade from 70% to 80%, the parent may criticize him or her for not getting 90%. Parents that do not care about achievement also do a disservice to their child. If the only thing a parent wants is for the child to stay out of trouble, then the child has no reason to strive to do well. The effort will not be recognized at home anyway! Parental recognition of realistic achievement is important to healthy emotional development.

Parenting is not easy. Relating to a child who needs guidance can be very stressful. Parents often punish instead of discipline. If they do discipline, it may be so inconsistent that the child cannot establish a set of values regarding appropriate behaviour. Open and honest communication between parent and children is also required for healthy development. For example, some parents are too busy to listen to the problems of their children; they fail to give them needed support in difficult situations. They may also be out of touch with the reality of the child’s generation.

With respect to faulty parenting, a last area is role modelling. Some children have such poor parental role models that they choose to be the exact opposite of their parents. This result could be a positive outcome. Many children, however, assume the negative aspects of the parental role model. If the parent is a bigot, the child may also grow up with prejudices. If the parent steals cable services, illegally copies DVD’s, etc., the child may grow up thinking that stealing is acceptable.