The Authoritarian parent is demanding but not responsive. The extreme is totalitarian parenting, my way or the highway, no ifs, ands, or buts. The parent expects children to conform to their rules with little to no open dialogue between parent and child. The parent expects a lot out of their children but do not explain the reasoning for the rules and boundaries. This type of parent will spank their child rather than talk to them (we will discuss spanking some other day but just so you know there have been studies showing that spanking is effective and isn't as bad as we have made it out to be).
The child will have less social competence because they are told how to act and respond. The child is not given room to make choices. An interesting thing about this style is that in some cultures kids have positive outcomes. An example is Asian culture. I would also think some religious cultures have the same effect. The problem though is that when a child is pushed to much there is a good chance that they will rebel, break down, or run.
So if we want a character that has bad social manners or who is overly submissive then we could use parents of this style to explain that to the reader. It would also be a good reason of why a character runs away from his family. These type of characters may be broken or they may be the complete opposite completely rebelling against any type of authority. These are our anarchist perhaps. Once again people who have gone through this type of parenting could be perfectly normal with little to no problems. They may have even had a good childhood.
What are your thought? What type of character could you explain who comes from this parenting style?
the scary part is what happens to the child when they no longer have said authority in their life...and they are ill prepared to face society in general when they leave the home...this is an intriguing one to play with when it comes to characters...wrote a short not too long ago with said character on my dark blog...
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you pointed this out. This is a huge problem with kids that appear to be perfectly healthy to the average person and then they leave home and then every thing blows up. Thanks Brian!
ReplyDeleteI think we see this in a lot of the royal characters, princes, princess, and whatnot. They often have parents who are dictators in their life. Another good post.
ReplyDeletePlaying out scenarios with characters from a strict up-bring who are finally out in the world on their own is intriguing, exploring the challenges they might face and the paths they might choose to solve their problems. Ideas are running wild in my mind now.
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