“No”, “Don’t”, “You can’t…” - Do we say these very often when we are nurturing our child? Sometimes, we are so used to it that we didn’t realize our misbehavior toward the little ones. However, there are parents are so restrictive that they just disapprove whatever their child trying to do. In another words, they become very controllable towards their child! How do you find this type of parenting style in nurturing our child? Are you one of them without realizing it?

Restrictive parents are also known as authoritarian parents. They are very strict to their parental rules and directions. They expect their child to follow those rules without explaining the purpose of the rules - “You must listen and follow what I said! No question asks!”. If the child disobeys or break any rules that set, he/she shall be punished without explanation. Most likely a restrictive parent will hit a child as a form of punishment instead of grounding a child.

The restrictive parents do not care of how their child feel about the rules and directions that they have set. All they want is an obedient child. These type of parents only listen to themselves. They feel that they own their child. The child does not have freedom to choose according to his needs, instead he is living under the control of his parents’ needs and expectation. They even use force such as beating and hitting to get their child to follow their instructions. Is this an effective parenting? What are the effects on a child who has over restrictive parents?

• The child lacks of social competence due to low self confident and lack of initiatives because he has been trained to follow his parents’ will instead of himself. If he tries to go against his parents’ will, he will be punished.
• He lacks of spontaneity and curiosity because he has no freedom of choice in his life.
• He has difficulties in making decision on his own as all the time he follows what the parents decide for him.
• In some cases, the child might be coming very rebellious. This is a way to show his dissatisfaction against their parents. The child will make lots of attempts to upset their parents. The child might runway from home at young age, partaking in drugs/alcohol/sexual behavior. When the child grows up, he/she might choose to marry or dating a partner whom they know their parents will disapprove of. The child may estrange from their parents during adulthood to stay away from their control.
• The child may become an authoritarian parent without realization.

Look back at our parenting style, are we one of them? I notice that some schools also apply this approach in the name of getting children to be more disciplined and obedient. I once questioned a principal if we are a kindergarten or military school as we are using force to control a group of children who are less than 3 years old. I told her that the approach is totally not effective because we are forcing the children the obey instead of they wanted to listen and follow from their own will. We needs lots of patience and love nurture our child’s discipline. We lead them to make the good choice and the right decision!