Parenting: how Childhood Affects Mental Health into Adulthood

Article by Ciara Sophia

There are countless factors that add up to who we become as human beings: genetics, experiences, religion, and environment. One found to be particularly essential is the way we are raised. There are a multitude of different parenting styles, and they all have different effects on children, effects that are typically carried with us into adulthood. This being said, many of our quirks, struggles, and/or habits that we’ve assumed as part of our identity can be attributed to things we picked up from childhood.

Sarah Berke, LMLP

Psychologist Sarah Berke has always been passionate about the way the brain works and helping people. Berke completed her undergraduate degree at University of Nebraska Kearney and received her master’s in clinical psychology from Washburn University in May of 2024, and currently practices at Armstrong Family Counseling as a Licensed Master’s Level Psychologist (LMLP). Berke emphasizes the importance of parent/home life, revealing that it affects children’s cognitive and emotional development in every way, shape, and form.
“My oldest client is in their 50’s, and we still talk about home life,” Berke said. She uses the analogy of children being a little sponge in the home, taking everything in without even realizing it. Therefore, the way that parents communicate with each other, communicate with their child, and communicate with other people, is learned by the child and either consciously or unconsciously taken into effect.
For context, the four established parenting styles — authoritarian, permissive, authoritative, and neglectful — produce a multitude of different effects on children. To briefly define each, authoritarian parenting is seen as setting many strict rules and structures with little to no interest in their child’s feelings. In short, it is high structure with little emotional warmth. This style of parenting has shown a high level of correlation with poor mental health in children, along with a high level of correlation with child aggression. Permissive parenting can be defined as being highly nurturing and affectionate, however unreasonably indulgent and lenient with their children. Receiving little to no repercussions for bad behavior, it fosters a type of thinking in children such as: ‘I can do whatever I want’ or ‘I can say whatever I want and I won’t get in trouble’. Children parented this way will have an adverse reaction to authority and struggle to set routines for themselves, probably struggling later in life with self-discipline.

Authoritative parenting establishes a good middle ground between structure and nurture, setting reasonable expectations and boundaries while remaining emotionally present and available to their children. These types of parents also leave room for conversation and compromise with their children, guiding with reason and often using fairer discipline rather than punishments or threats when they slip up. This type of parenting has been linked with superior child outcomes throughout the world. Finally, neglectful parenting is as it sounds, described as having no responsiveness to your child and appearing indifferent to their activities and needs. Typically, uninvolved parents let bad behavior slip, and let good behavior go unrewarded, ignoring their responsibility of ensuring that their children become functioning and contributing members of society.

It is important to note that not every parent fits perfectly into this classification system of parenting, and there are some notable differences throughout the world. In fact, most parents reading this article are probably having trouble placing themselves into one single category. The bottom line is that it isn’t necessary to fixate on these four parenting styles, in fact it’s better to do what is best for your situation rather than trying to fit into one of the extremes. The importance lies in what you’re actively doing in your home to foster emotional, physical, and cognitive growth for your children.
Based on her professional opinion and the clients she’s seen throughout the years, Berke provides some advice on parenting: “I think it’s really healthy to have check-ins every day; not just your typical ‘How was your day’. I always tell parents to do a high of the day, a low of the day, and an emotion of the day. This teaches kids how to navigate through their day and also how to describe their day with emotion-words rather than just answering with ‘fine’. I always encourage being mindful and really listening to the child’s answers and validating their experiences. You’re going to learn a lot about your kid from their high and their low; you’re going to learn about their friends, their partners, their sport, their coaches, their teachers, their grades, and more. Keeping up with your kid and knowing who is involved in their life meanwhile letting them navigate their own life and make their own decisions is the best attempt at a happy-medium.”

In conclusion, the way children are parented is critical for their development into adulthood. Many times, this is overlooked, however, if you as the reader think back, there’s likely a habit you often catch yourself doing that stems from your childhood, or a childhood lesson that you still live by today.

For more information on this topic contact Sarah Berke, LMLP with Armstrong Family Counseling 913.204.0582 or visit armstrongfamilycounseling.com.