Take That Tiger Mom
In the ongoing battle between Tiger Moms, French Mamas, and everyone else who wants to know what is the best way to raise their kids, a new study adds evidence that the extreme Tiger-style may do more harm than good.
Authoritarian parents are more likely to end up with disrespectful children with violent behaviors, the study found, compared to parents who listen to their kids with the goal of gaining trust.
It was the first study to look at how parenting styles affect the way teens view their parents and, in turn, how they behave.
The study considered three general styles of parenting. Authoritative parents are demanding and controlling while also being warm and sensitive to their children’s needs.
Authoritarian parents, on the contrary, are demanding and controlling without the appearance of caring, attachment and receptiveness. They take a “my way or the highway” approach to their kids.
Permissive parents, the third group, have warm and receptive qualities, but they set few boundaries and carry out few rules.
Using data on early 600 kids from an ongoing study of middle school and high school students in New Hampshire, researchers from the University of New Hampshire were able to find “my way or the highway” parenting with more violent behaviors like robbery, drug-taking, and attacking someone else with the intention of hurting or killing.
Firm but loving parenting, on the other hand, led to fewer lawbreakers. Permissive parenting, surprisingly, didn’t seem to make much of a difference either.
To explain the link between parenting style and behavior in kids, the researchers suggested that what matters most is how reasonable kids think their parents’ power is. This sense comes when kids trust that their parents are making the best decisions for them and believe that they need to do what their parents say even if they don’t always like how their parents are treating them.
When kids respect the power of their parents, the researchers reported in the journal of Adolescence, their behavior is better. Previous research has also linked firm but caring parenting with kids who have more self-control and independence.
“When children consider their parents to be the reliable figure, they trust the parents and feel that they have a duty to do what their parents tell them to do,” said lead researcher Pick Trinkner. “This is very important as the parent doesn’t have to rely on a system of rewards and punishments to control behavior and the child is more likely to follow the rules when the parent is not physically present.”
Tiger Moms and French Mamas are mentioned in the passage to _______.

A．give an example of authoritarian parenting

B．show the advantage of parenting

C．compare two types of parenting

D．introduce the topic

According to the research, what kind of parenting style is likely to cause children’s criminal behaviors?

A．Caring parenting.	B．Permissive parenting.
C．Authoritarian parenting.	D．Authoritative parenting.

Which of the following probably belongs to the action of the permissive parents?

A．Allowing the kids to stay up late at weekends as the kids like.

B．Beating the kids if the kids don’t follow their instructions.

C．Listening to the kids’ request and giving their demands.

D．Setting some rules and checking the kids’ behaviors.

According to the passage, children are more likely to obey the rules when _______.

A．their parents listen to them totally

B．they believe in and accept their parents

C．their parents are sensitive to their needs

D．their parents demand and control their behaviors