Parenting with Style: Warmth; Control; Involvement

School's out for Summer!  The kids are home all day and parents are growing in appreciation for teachers with each passing moment!

In honor of this, That's Psych! will focus on Parenting Styles for the month of June.

Psychologists usually evaluate parenting based on three dimensions: Warmth; Control; and Involvement.  Warmth has to do with how much parents express the love that they feel for their children. This love can be expressed through praising children when they do something well, hugs and kisses, saying, "I love you," and keeping things positive around the kids - shielding them from the ups and downs of the adults' own lives.  If parents frequently do these things, they are getting it right!  These parents would be considered to be High in Warmth.

On the other hand, parents who are Low in Warmth, may love their children, but they do not show it very much.  Instead they may appear stern, they are not very affectionate and rarely say "I love you," and if they have a bad day, they take it out on their kids by being grumpy around them.

Control has to do with discipline:  does the parent have rules and, if those rules are broken, is there some kind of consequence?  The parents who get it right, are considered to be Medium in Control.  This means that they have rules, but these are age-appropriate and sensible.  It also means that when these rules are broken, there is some sort of consequence, but this punishment is also age-appropriate and sensible.  These parents are really interested in teaching children the moral, or the reason, behind the rules.  For example, you don't hit people because it is not okay to hurt others.

In contrast, parents who are High in Control have too many rules and they often expect their children to behave as if they are older than they really are.  If expectations are too high, it means that the kids will often fail at following these rules; a parent who is High in Control also gives very harsh punishment as a consequence.  These parents are really interested in their children obeying authority: it does not matter why there is a rule, if an adult tells you to do something you must do it.

We can also find parents who are very Low in Control.  These parents either don't have rules or have very few rules for their children.  It may be that they don't expect enough from their children as they grow up.  If a rule is broken, these parents rarely have consequences for their children, or the punishment is so light that it has little effect.  These parents aren't interested in playing a role in shaping their children's behavior by teaching right from wrong.

In addition to Warmth and Control, parents can also differ in the amount of Involvement that they have in their children's lives.  Parents who are High in Involvement really know their children:  they know what is happening in their daily lives and in their inner lives.  For example, a parent who is High in Involvement would know the names of the child's friends and teachers, the child's favorite and most despised foods,  and what scares the child the most.  These parents spend quality time with their children and, just like Involvement, usually get Warmth and Control right.

A parent who is Low in Involvement would not know the details of the child's daily life or emotional life.  Often these parents spend little quality time with their children, and are likely to show problems with Warmth and Control.

In the next four blog posts, we'll feature the different types of parents and how they stack up on Warmth, Control, and by association, Involvement.  Parenting styles are in fashion this June!

Further Reading:

Want some ideas about showing High Warmth to your kids?  The Baby Center has ideas for young children and Psychology Today has ideas for teens.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has a website for parents: healthychildren.org .  Look here for good suggestions about discipline and how to be Medium in Control.

Related to Involvement, here is an article from The Daily Telegraph that includes 25 questions to ask your children. 

So gifted...

In the 1971 movie "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory," Gene Wilder plays a much more menacing version of Willy Wonka than you may be familiar with from the 2005 remake. Spoiled children are his biggest pet peeve and he watches them die candy-related deaths with nonchalance (see the demise of Augustus Gloop here) much to the horror of their parents.  So it is no surprise that Wilder's Wonka stars in this week's meme:

Why is this funny?

One possibility is that people believe that giftedness should imply a high level of all skills, including social and behavioral skills (the "harmony hypothesis").  So if a child is labeled as "Gifted" in school, it would be very funny to find that child eating sand at the playground.  This harmony hypothesis is not supported by research.  Intellectual giftedness usually means that the child is a quick learner, has an IQ that is unusually high, and is often able to complete schoolwork at a level that is more advanced their grade level.  Thus, a child who is gifted but has low social skills can exist.  In addition, children who are "Twice Exceptional" are examples of how intellectual giftedness can coexist with learning disabilities and behavior issues that require intervention.

Another possibility is that people believe that gifted children are weirdos who all have emotional and behavioral problems (the "disharmony hypothesis").  For example, in a 2013 study of German school teachers, their implicit stereotypes about gifted students included that they are, "less emotionally stable...less agreeable" (p. 40).  The authors, Baudson and Preckel, point out this stereotype does not match reality: gifted children do not have higher rates of emotional or behavioral problems than average children.

At the same time, reviews of Giftedness research remind us that these children are often very sensitive, which may be misperceived as being over-emotional.  They also may struggle with perfectionism - for example, getting very upset if they receive an A- instead of an A.  Gifted children, like all children, become friends with kids who are similar to them, so these reviews also suggest that gifted children will be most socially successful with other gifted kids.  So maybe these traits have been misunderstood to mean that Gifted children have emotional and behavioral problems.

The final possibility is that this meme is funny because it is making fun of parents who brag that their children are Gifted and exceptional without any evidence to support that claim.  This is my favorite interpretation because the humor is not based on a misperception of gifted kids.

Brummelman, Thomaes, Neleman, Orobio de Castro, and Bushman (2015) detail the creation of their Parental Overvaluation Scale (the POS, which is ironic in American slang).  Overvaluing means viewing your child as somehow more deserving of good things and of being a better person than the average child.  In fact, the paper's title includes the phrase, "My child is God's gift to Humanity" to demonstrate how extreme this perception can be.  The authors found that this warped view was often, but not always, reported by narcissistic parents.  For all parents, overvaluing was demonstrated by irrationally high evaluations of their children's knowledge, compulsive praising of their children's efforts, and over-estimation of their children's intelligence.

For example, Brummelman et al. had parents rate how likely it was that their children were familiar with certain important, historical concepts.  Some of these were real, like "Vietnam War," but others were made up, like "Storming of Austria" (p. 679). The parents who overvalue their children were not only more likely to believe that their kids would be familiar with the real examples, they were also more likely to believe that their children would be familiar with the fictional examples!

The authors also recorded parents' behaviors as they helped their children solve mathematics problems:  overvaluing parents praised their children 62% more often.  This praise was not related to how accurately the problems were solved, so it was not reflecting reality!

Most relevant to our meme, Brummelman et al. asked parents to evaluate their children's intellect, including how much they agree with this statement: "I see my child as gifted" (p. 672).  Even though their children's IQ scores were not higher than other children's, the overvaluing parents were more likely to agree that their children are gifted!

Parents who overvalue their children may be doing more harm than simply being annoying to Willy Wonka:  these behaviors may turn entitled children into adult narcissists who believe that they are superior humans.  Bushman, one of the creators of the POS, has recently gotten wide media attention in the United States for his suggestion that parents lay off of so much praise to avoid creating little narcissists.  Over-simplified headlines reading, "Don't praise your child!  Don't tell your child that he is special!" seemed to spring up overnight!

This parent-blaming reminds me of a song from "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory":

However, Bushman's claims are guesses in the longterm - we don't know if overvalued children actually turn into narcissistic adults - and the average parent is unlikely to be an overvaluing parent.  You also know that irrationally excessive praise is only one part of overvaluing behaviors.  So if your praise is justified and if you tell your child that he or she is special because EVERY human is unique and special, it is unlikely to cause a problem.

Either way - Gifted or not - if your children are eating sand like Augustus Gloop eats chocolate, you should talk to their pediatrician about pica!  This can be a sign of nutritional deficiencies.


 Further Reading:

The Brummelman et al. (2015) article in JPSP is available through your college library, but a version of the authors' related study that spawned Bushman's media frenzy is available online.  The published version in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States can also be accessed through your college library.

Hoagies Gifted Education Page and the National Associate for Gifted Children are good sources for parents and teachers who want to learn more about intellectual giftedness.

Have to deal with overvaluing parents?  Help from WebMd: Talking to parents who brag about their kids.

This man claims that his biggest phobia is a fear of Willy Wonka!