Self-Worth of Indian Children Gets Impacted by Father's Role

New research suggests that Indian children, whose fathers display negative parenting traits such as detachment, intrusiveness, lax enforcement of discipline and controlling behavior are likely to have lower self-esteem. This is because children's self-worth is linked to the behavior of the dominant parent and in Indian cultures, fathers generally play the central role both within and outside the household, the study noted.

The researchers studied English and Indian families living in Britain to assess the impact of the household power structures that exist within different cultures on a child's wellbeing.

They found that English children whose mothers displayed more negative parenting traits reported lower self-esteem. But for Indian children, the father's behavior had more of an impact.

"Mothers and fathers play different roles in different cultures - these findings highlight the importance of these distinct gender-based power structures on a child's self-worth," said study co-author Alison Pike from University of Sussex in England.

In Indian cultures, fathers are considered to be the head of the family, in terms of power and their role as disciplinarian. These differences often remain in spite of immigration into Britain, the study said.

"Parenting literature is still dominated by mothering, reflecting Western norms. With 7.5 million foreign-born residents in the UK, we need to spend more time considering parenting practice through a cultural lens," Pike noted.

Advertisement

The study was published in the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology.

Source-IANS