Being a parent comes with a lot of responsibility and difficulties. As the Elizabeth Stone said: “Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body”. Parents always want to raise their children well. At this point, different parenting behaviors emerge such as permissive, authoritative, neglectful. While some people believe that strict parenting is the only way to bring up children, others think that strict parenting will harm the child. I believe that strict parenting will not be beneficial to children because of several reasons.
My first and most important reason is that every wrong of children should not be punished. Firstly, children raised with punitive discipline have anger and depression problems. According to the research at Oxford University 65% of children who grow up with strict parents consult a doctor as a result of depression. Secondly, these children have a hard time forgiving people who make mistakes. That is why they are intolerant. Thirdly, they are stressed because they are constantly punished for their mistakes. Therefore, they make more mistakes. To sum up, it appears to me that strict parents negatively affect children’s mental health by punishing them for any mistake.
The second reason is that children are not seen as individuals. First of all, the children who live under the strict control of their parents feel obliged to follow their parents’ promises, which makes them dependent on their parents. These children become unable to live alone and have dificulty dealing with their problems in the future. Secondly, the children who are raised in a family with limited freedom or tolerance may become sensitive or rebellious. Research has shown that these children have a hard time sharing their feelings. Thirdly, these children who constantly ask for approval from their parents feel worthless and have low self-confidence. As a result, they may have a hard time making friends. In short, children should be valued as individuals.
Another reason is that strict parenting is based on fear. Firstly, children who grow up with fear do not do well in school classes because their emotional intelligence is not developed enough. It is a well-known fact that emotional intelligence is an important part of success. Secondly, children who are raised on the basis of fear cannot empathize, so they learn bullying. Therefore, these children think that power will solve everything. Finally, these children who grow up with fear may not follow social rules in the future. In this way, they may have the potential to commit crimes. In brief, children should not be raised in an atmosphere of fear.
All in all, it appears to me that strict parenting which involves punishing children for every single mistake, not regarding children as an individual, and bringing up children by frightening them does not do children any good. My advice is to treat children as we would like to be treated. I believe that happy and healthy children can be raised in this way,