DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGIST BRIEFS PARENTS
ON GETTING TO KNOW THEIR CHILDREN
By Michael Ireland
Senior Correspondent
ASSIST Communications

MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA (March 4, 2000) -- Pointing to streaks of gray in her hair, Dr. Mary Anne Chalkley, Associate Professor in the Psychology Department at St. Thomas University in St. Paul, Minnesota, and adjunct associate professor in the Life Course Center, Department of Sociology, University of Minnesota, told parents that despite earned degrees in developmental psychology, her gray hairs were her "real credentials."

Speaking at an evening forum at the Jonathan Elementary School in the Minneapolis suburb of Chaska, she told parents she "cut her teeth" on her 19-year-old daughter and her 25-year-old son. "Those are my real credentials. The Ph.D. and other stuff is sort of ancillary."

Chalkley said she has worked with every age range "from little biddy kids to great big kids. I've sort of sampled the smorgasbord."

Dr. Chalkley is a developmental psychologist who has been teaching at St. Thomas, a Catholic university, for over 10 years. She has worked in almost every child development setting, including as a toddler teacher in a nursery school/day care center and subsequently became director of that program. Her research work has included work with toddlers, teens and roughly every age in between. Her primary involvement for the past 12 years has been collaboration with a family sociologist at the University of Minnesota, Dr. Robert Leik, on a long-term study of the impact of Head Start on children and their families.

Dr. Chalkley earned her B.A. from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York in 1971, and her Ph.D. from the Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota in 1988.

"Almost all of the developmental literature indicates that there are two elements that matter all over the map in terms of parenting," said Chalkley.

"One is, how warm is the parent? Is the parent affectionate, does the parent show interest in the child, does the parent praise the child, and does the parent communicate positive, warm, good feelings? The other thing is, what kind of discipline and control do they have? Do the parents have high expectations of their kids, do they have good discipline, or are they pretty lax? Those are the two components that come up over and over again in study after study about parenting," Chalkley said.

With these two different components, there are four different parenting styles, said Chalkley.

"If you are high on control, but you are also high on warmth, that's called authoritative parenting style, and that's the one that's been associated over time with the most positive outcomes with kids. People who are 'so-so' with warmth, and they are high in expectations with their kids, high on control, are called authoritarian. They are the 'do it because I say so' types.

"Then there are the parents who are more lax on rules, they don't seem to have a lot of rules and regulations -- they call it permissive, and they can be divided into two groups: they get called the indulgent if you're 'I love you to death, Honey and you can do anything,' and indifferent if they have no rules and regulations and don't really pay to much attention to you. Those are the categories (of parenting styles)."

Chalkley said the research done over the last 30 years shows that authoritative parenting is associated with the best child outcomes.

"These are the kids who have high self-esteem, good social skills, who do well with academics, who are independent, those who are raised being bright in school, they look real good! The next bet-looking group is the authoritarian. These kids do OK in school, but they may not be doing as well in the social world -- in terms of social skills, that's more problematic.

"The kids who are having the most problems are the ones who come from the permissive homes. These kids typically don't have enough discipline to stick it out at school. Because they have gotten away with everything they have very little impulse control, which means they have parent relationship problems on the indulgent side, of if they're from the indifferent side they have high risk for being in gangs later on because they have issues with hostility."

Chalkley issued one cautionary note, stressing that virtually all the research in this area has been done on white, middle class families in modern Western cultures.

"If you go outside of that, you may not find that the styles, like the authoritative style, are always such a good thing," said Chalkley.

However, in some cases, such as that where there is an authoritative teacher in the classroom with inner city kids, this would be associated with "good outcomes," she said.

"On the other hand, if you look at low-income families, or even blue collar families, you often find that those families are much more into obedience and obeying authority, so they often get classified as authoritarian, because you have to follow the rules, you have to do what the boss says. In those cases, they're often being trained for and will wind up working in the world in a place where they have to obey authority, they have to do things the way they're told, the same things over and over again. And so it might be very productive for them. It's also true that authoritarian parenting might be more successful for high-risk environments like the inner cities, where you can't afford to have your kids stop and negotiate with you whether they should run out into the street. So authoritarian parenting might be beneficial in certain other contexts. Permissive parenting might be also -- we're just not sure about that."

Chalkley said the one place authoritative parenting is bound to backfire is in stepfamilies.

She said a step-parent coming into a family is much better off providing a lot of "positive warmth," being the indulgent, permissive, parent, but not providing the rules, because the children have a hard time accepting rules coming form a so-called "stranger."

"The step-parent should probably come in and support the biological parent in the rules. That seems to work a whole lot better, at least for the first two years. Then after that there's a shift and it seems you can move into an authoritative style of parenting that works better," she said.

Chalkley said the aspect of parenting she was most interested in was the fact that children most often shape a lot of parenting that goes on. Here she admitted this was a mixture of research and her opinion.

"Kids actually shape a lot of your own parenting," said Chalkley.

Authoritative parenting, she said, was also called "democratic parenting."

"The trick is to set rules and regulations which give the child challenges, but at the same time give the child opportunities to make choices, to make decisions. You need to change the rules and regulations as the kids get older, or as their needs change. So it's on-going negotiations," said Chalkley.

These issues included curfew times, she said, which were not inflexible but adapted to the child's needs and developmental level.

Research has shown that when dealing with grade-school age boys diagnosed with conduct disorder, that parents became more demanding, assertive, directive, and showed less negotiation. With the "average-Joe" child, the parents were fine, she said, exhibiting calmness, negotiation, setting rules, and encouraging the child. This was an example of kids setting the agenda and shaping the parenting style, said Chalkley.

"These kids elicit certain things from you, and all of you know that!" she said.

"It's taken child psychologists so long to come up with what is so obvious. We all know that these kids push our buttons, they shape our parenting and they pick their times and their places, which is best for them and worst for you."

Children need different things from us as parents at different stages of development, Chalkley said, referring to being more or less assertive at different times in their lives.

Chalkley suggested three ways for parents to start getting to know their children.

First was to be a good observer, to notice what situations work well for the child, what causes special challenges or problems, and keeping a diary with notes about the child and the behavior. Behavior specialists go even further, said Chalkley, and recommend keeping checklists of target behaviors and their pattern of occurrence.

Parents also need to take notice and take advantage of those occasions when their child talks freely with them. For her, Chalkley said her daughter wanted to talk late at night before going to bed. She ended up setting bedtime earlier to work in the time to carry this out.

A third strategy was the art of role-playing, reversing the roles of parent and child to "see" how the other responds during certain events. Chalkley's daughter realized her mother "had a point" when Chalkley acted out her daughter's tendency to be tardy.

Chalkley encouraged parents to let their children make mistakes. "Not so many that they are always failing, but enough so that they will learn for themselves what works and what doesn't," said Chalkley.

"We all know that we learn more from our mistakes than when things are going well," she said.

Chalkley also blasted the "quality time" myth, saying that there was no substitute for "quantity time."

"Spending quality time is possible, but nothing works better then spending quantity time with your kids."

Chalkley also encouraged fathers to build a social support network.

"Men especially rely on their wives for their social support. Men need to build a network of their own friends for social support in parenting," said Chalkley.
______________________________________________________________________

Michael Ireland is a British freelance journalist in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
A former reporter with a London newspaper, Michael is the Midwest representative of ASSIST Ministries and ASSIST Communications of Garden Grove, CA. Email: mireland@usfamily.net

Mom's Wisdom
Submitted by Margo Bentzler

I gave you life, but cannot live it for you.
I can teach you things, but I cannot make you learn.
I can give you directions, but I cannot be there to lead you.
I can allow you freedom, but I cannot account for it.
I can take you to church, but I cannot make you believe.
I can teach you right from wrong, but I cannot always decide for you.
I can buy you beautiful clothes, but I cannot make you beautiful inside.
I can offer you advice, but I cannot accept it for you.
I can give you love, but I cannot force it upon you.
I can teach you to share, but I cannot make you unselfish.
I can teach you respect, but I cannot force you to show honor.
I can advise you about friends, but cannot choose them for you.
I can advise you about sex, but I cannot keep you pure.
I can tell you the facts of life, but I can't build your reputation.
I can tell you about drink, but I can't say "no" for you.
I can warn you about drugs but I can't prevent you from using them.
I can tell you about lofty goals, but I can't achieve them for you.
I can teach you about kindness, but I can't force you to be gracious.
I can warn you about sins, but I cannot make you moral
I can love you as a child, but I cannot place you in God's family.
I can pray for you, but I cannot make you walk with God.
I can teach you about Jesus, but I cannot make Jesus your Lord.
I can tell you how to live, but I cannot give you eternal life.
I can love you with unconditional love all of my life. . .and I will!

Always,
Mom

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