Parents' Effect on Their Children's Happiness, Free Essay on Child Development

Happiness can be defined as the state of being content as well as having joy and gratitude as well due to the positive emotional feeling that one develops. Over the years, developments in technology, as well as economic constraints, have adversely affected the relationship between parents and their children. Apparently, much of the things parents used to do in the past are drastically getting washed away by the young parents. Parenting has become so challenging to the extent that in the current world children are adversely affected socially, physically as well as emotionally by their parents. Notably, most parents are ignoring their parenting roles and mandate towards growing up happy children. Regardless of one's personalities, and age, it is the mandate of parents to employ some critical elements in their parenting to help them find happiness for their children. This paper focuses on the parent's effects on the happiness of their children. The paper further argues on what parents can do to make their children happy.

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Unlike the past parents used to make sure that they have a happy family including their children. It is evident that due to the struggle that each parent is striving to make sure that they have a financially stable family, and thus parents spend much of their time working rather than spending some time with their children. Work makes one busy most of the time, and therefore, when arriving home, one is much exhausted and has no adequate time to interact with their children (Doherty, and Hughes). Psychologists suggest that children feel more happy and secure when they associate with parents, and thus the little time that parents spend with their children cannot be efficient for the parents to understand their children. If a parent understands their children well, it is an indication that they know what makes their children happy and what brings sadness to them. In this case, parents do not understand their children and thus cannot tell when their children are happy or unhappy. The impact of the situation is adverse to the children both emotionally and psychologically (Feldman, Robert). Therefore, parents should create some time to spend with their children rather than concentrating on their job.

Secondly, the technological advancements that are increasingly developing each day have a lot of adverse effects on parenting. It is evident that parents are buying digital devices for their children to spend their leisure time. In the past, parents used to make fun and play together with their children. However, with the developed technology, parents have opted to keep their children busy with electronic gadgets which also make the children lazy as well as placing them at risk of developing obesity. According to studies, it is established that in the overscheduled world, it is difficult to find time for a child's play. The American Academy of Pediatrics carried out a study and confirmed that children without structure time for play experienced elevated levels of stress. Evidently, when children play with their parents, they are likely to be happier and find themselves open to parents and can share any of their problems with the parents unlike when the parent-child relationship is quite feeble (Feldman, Robert). Also, it is helpful for parents to learn more about their children, and thus developing a stronger relationship between the children and their parents.

According to Doherty, and Hughes in their book, Child Development, they affirm that parents' behaviors directly affect how their children will behave as well. Therefore it is essential that parents develop good examples for their children as they are like photocopy machines, copying what they see from parents. It is evident that in the current world, stress is prevalent among a significant number of people. Thus stress management process or approach and reaction towards the stress affects how the children of the family will react to stress as well. If parents react negatively towards stress, children are likely to copy the same way of reaction to stress when they face the same situation. The negative reaction may include lashing and yelling out. These kinds of reactions may scare a child. In this ways, children learn how to shut themselves down and may think they are the cause of stress to their parents. When a child lives with fear, it is likely that the relationship with their parents may deteriorate significantly (Compton-Burnett). It is important for parents to learn positive approaches to handling stress, and it greatly helps their children feel the parent's love does not change regardless of stress in them.

Child abuse has been a topic of discussion for very many years. According to Kiuru et al., (805), some parents tend to abuse their children physically, and emotionally. Child abuse brings forth destructive and antisocial behaviors. When a child is abused, they will always try to cope with the situation at hand and try to understand why they are being abused by their parents. Remarkably, the relationship between the child and their parents will not remain the same after getting abused by their parents. The abused child will be stressed most of the time and thus lack happiness in their life. Besides, the victims of abuse are likely to be violent and aggressive as well as having learning problems. Parents abusing their children provide a harsh environment for their children, opposite of what is required for children to grow healthy both physically and emotionally.

Some parents may have a different perception on the matter of disciplining their children. Some parents opt for an aggressive approach such as spanking and other physical punishments for indecent discipline cases. The approach used for restraining a child matters much on how the child will behave and change the behaviors. Besides, physical punishment can greatly create a gap between the child-parent relationships as the child may develop a negative attitude towards the parent. With a rift in the relationship, a child will not live happily, and instead, they will always live in fear of facing punishments that hurt (Kevin et al., 770). It is essential for parents to select the most appropriate approach for punishing their kids such as time-outs which can significantly modify the unwanted behavior of the child in a calm manner.

Some parents may think that providing material things for their children will make their children extremely happy. However, that is not the case. According to surveys done in many schools, results indicate that almost 80% of children respond that they feel most happy spending time with their families (Kiuru et al., 810). Thus, it is not only enough for parents to provide the material items for their children and instead create time to spend with their children. Spending time together with children is significant as it will positively enhance the moral behavior of the child as well as their attitudes towards situations. Parents can use the time to advise their children and teach them how to grow up in a moral standard that is expected by the society (Kevin et al., 778). Children growing up in such an environment are likely to love their parents more and have a positive relationship with their parents, thus live with happiness.

In sum, parenting is a significant aspect of life and a healthy growing of a child. Parents are required to live by examples to their children as they view them as their models. Parents directly affect the happiness and the moral growing of their children. Evidently, technological advancements, as well as the changing world which is overscheduled, make parents to lack time to spend with their children as well as educating them with moral standards. Also, child abuse affects the happiness of children as they develop negative attitudes towards their parents and live with fear throughout their life. It is essential for parents to take note of their parenting roles to enhance a healthy growth of their children.

References

Compton-Burnett, I. Parents And Children. Bloomsbury Reader, 2012.

Doherty, Jonathan, and Malcolm Hughes. Child Development. Pearson Longman, 2009.

Feldman, Robert S. Development across the life span. Pearson, 2016.

Kevin P. Haggerty, Richard Spoth, Cleve Redmond "Unique influence of mothers and fathers on their children's antisocial behavior." Journal of Marriage and Family 66.3 (2004): 762-778.

Kiuru, Noona, et al. "The role of parenting styles and teacher interactional styles in children's reading and spelling development." Journal of School Psychology 50.6 (2012): 799-823.