Parents as Role Models

People look up to their parents and how they view the world and their job. There is no better way to learn than to learn from example. How parents work and act reflects directly onto a child's success. Malcolm Gladwell mentions the Borgenichts and how these Jewish immigrants found a use for aprons when no one else had and turned it into a business (141-151). The Borgenichts were new to the country but still managed to find work when no one else could. The factor that was influential to the Borgenichts children was not the fact they started a business, but it was the fact that they started a business out of passion and made their work meaningful.

Alike (short film)

Children understand a lot more than adults perceive and hard work with motive gives a child incentive to work just as hard as their parents. In the video link above one can see how important it is to find the fun in a job, otherwise people lose who they are and the motivation to work hard in their job. Success is gained with hard work and it is hard to work hard when you have nothing to work for. Parents influence what we are passionate about and how much work we put into our passions. The way parents raise their children impacts their child's chances for success and the most important factor of parenting is teaching by example.

We have all heard the phrase, “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree”. It is important for parents to set the right example because their views and opinions of the world are likely to rub off on their offspring. Aleš Kudrnáč and Pat Lyons discuss the correlation between voter turnout in their article Parental Example as a Motivation for Turnout among Youth. Kudrnáč and Lyons state that the “youth is more likely to think they will vote in a future election if they have seen both of their parents voting in previous elections”. This is just one example of parent’s decisions impacting their children’s actions. The way that parents act and talk encourages their children to do the same, knowing this parents should be careful with what they say and do.

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Hard Love vs. Soft Love

Many people remember a wooden spoon, or their moms flip flop and a flood of negative memories invade their mind of times where they got a good hiding. However, not all of us can recall the time our parents left our buttocks a little bruised. There is lots a debate on how strict is too strict and when is a good time to let a child understand their wrongs by making their own mistakes. There are positives and negatives of having more involved and harsher parents. Stephanie Stein and Lillian J Breckenridge describe “[a]uthoritarian parents have a rigid set of absolute standards for child behavior that are strictly enforced, often through physical punishment” ( Parenting Styles ). By enforcing strong rules and circumstances to bad behavior, a child with has strict parents may have traits that a child with more relaxed parent might not. A child with strict parents knows how to get work done because their parents made sure they did what they needed when raising them. Howe...

Ethnicity

The cultural background of a parent and how they interact with their children has an influence on the child’s development. Mariëlle Prevoo and Catherine Tamis-LeMonda discuss the varying differences between cultural values and state, “ Parents from different cultural backgrounds differ in their parenting values and childrearing goals and in their SES [ SES-related stress with having ethnic parents ] these differences affect parenting practices and, in turn, child development ” ( Parenting and globalization inwestern countries ). It is important to recognize that every parenting style varies based on ethnic background. A child from a certain culture will have different expectations than a child from an alternative background. Each culture has expectations on their children and these cultural differences change the way the child develops. Every culture comes with their own stereotypes and those stereotypes are there for a reason. We categorize people and their success based ...

Poor Upbringing

Unfortunately there can be factors that affects a parent’s involvement with their children that are out of the parent’s control. In low income families it can be hard to give a child every thing that they might need. Research in Pathways to Adaptive Emotion Regulation Among Adolescents from Low-Income Families proves the strong correlation between a child’s upbringing and development. Within this article, authors emphasize, “active parental emotion socialization efforts may be especially critical among adolescents from low-income families” (Criss, Michael M.1, et al.). The parent’s role in a child’s success is far more impactful to a child of a low income family. A child that has grown up poor has less of a chance in gaining success. Parents of a low income family have to push their children to achieve more than they think they are capable of because those parents were never able to gain success. It is hard for a child to believe that they can achieve their goals because of t...

parenting styles and success

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