Parental Attitudes in Children and Adolescents

Parental attitudes are behaviors that develop in line with the psychological tendencies of the mother and father and reflect their unconscious needs. There are various factors that affect parental attitudes. These are:

1. Personality traits of the mother and father: The mental health of the mother and father, their behavioral patterns, and the way they were raised affect the child.
2. Age of the mother and father: If the mother and father got married at a young age, they may experience the inexperience of immaturity and neglect their children, or the child may experience distress due to the failure of their marriage. Especially in our country, when the mother and father’s parents are looking after the child, the child sees the mother and father almost as peers and accepts their parents as authorities. Since grandparents generally protect their grandchildren and make concessions (do not disobey their wishes, fulfill their every wish, etc.), the mother and father cannot influence the child.
3. The general marital harmony of the mother and father: If the child grows up in a harmonious marriage with mutual respect and understanding, he/she sees the mother and father as a common authority and interacts with both of them in a positive manner. As a result of not creating such a healthy environment, the child may experience various psychiatric disorders, including conversion disorder, gender identity disorder, and anorexia nervosa.
4.  Death or separation in the family (other than divorce): If the other parent cannot grieve normally as a result of the loss of a parent in the family and the grief remains buried, the child may unknowingly be given tasks that the child cannot handle, assign roles, or be overly lenient towards the child.
5. Being a planned/unplanned child: When there are attitudes such as rejecting or not wanting an unplanned child, there are deep wounds in the child’s self-perception and the child feels worthless and inadequate.
6. Characteristics of the child that come from birth: In families expecting a boy, gender creates differences in attitudes. The structural characteristics of the child (such as sleep disorders) can affect the parents. The order of birth of the child is important. Because the first child usually comes to the inexperience of the parents or all the expectations of the parents are in the first child. The middle child grows up comfortably. The last child maintains his/her position as the youngest in the family and is raised by the parents like a baby.
7. The child is born with an anomaly or disease or later develops a chronic/fatal disease: After the parents learn that they are going to have a child, they attribute many characteristics to the child before it is born. When the child is born with an anomaly, the parents experience shock, fear, and inability to accept it. Later, they begin to feel guilty because of these feelings and may devote themselves to the child. If the healthy child develops a fatal disease, the parents may be very gentle with that child and harsh towards other children, and may be indifferent to them. This disrupts the family’s psychological balance.

The mother and father should approach the child appropriately with love and discipline while raising the child. 

If the family gives the child too much love, no boundaries can be set for the child; they are too tolerant and do whatever the child says. It is seen that excessive love is linked to lack of discipline. The child is raised without ever being told ‘no’. Such a child may be like a baby and have a low threshold for inhibition. They have not been inoculated against the difficulties of life and when they go outside the boundaries of the home, they become a ‘fish out of water’. Lack of love is seen in children who are not planned, who are out of wedlock and who are not accepted later. These children are criticized very often, punished very often, are always seen as wrong, always problematic and grow up without receiving positive feedback. In the absence of love and discipline, the child is more likely to turn to crime. A child who is raised with excessive love and excessive discipline feels that he/she has to be the most well-behaved, the most hardworking and the most perfect. This manifests itself in the form of performance anxiety, fear of school and separation anxiety.