Study Findings, Warm Mothers Potentially Support Children's Success

Illustration of a warm mother (Unsplash/Liana Mikah)

JAKARTA – Parenting patterns and how to behave with children, apparently affect their future. One of the findings of a study conducted by The Human Flourishing Program at the Institute for Quantitative Social Sciences, Harvard University, shows that warm parental attitudes have positive benefits for children.

Ying Chen, Laura Kubzansky, and Tyler VanderWeele conducted the study in 2019. Their findings note that a person's ability to thrive in middle age is closely related to parental warmth in childhood. Middle age is often associated with a state where all aspects of a person's life are good.

Researchers reveal that a person's relationship with his parents strongly influences his emotional, psychological, and social life well into middle age.

“Most past research on the antecedents of childhood health has focused on identifying risk factors for disease, such as parental neglect and parental abuse – by comparison, what positive factors can help improve health and well-being later in life are relatively under-studied.” Ying Chen said as the opening remark of her study.

In the study, parental warmth had a moderate increase – a 21 percent reinforcing variable at higher developmental levels in middle age. Children are also 18 percent lower risk of depression and 17 percent lower risk of drug use.

Illustration of a warm mother (Unsplash/Kristyn Lapp)

The warmth or absence of parental warmth can be one of the strongest influences on an individual's quality of life in adulthood. Although the author believes that this factor is not the only one, the researchers hope that every parent considers how to behave and raise their children so that their development is maximized until they reach adulthood.

"For that reason, we believe it is important to consider the impact that other later experiences such as friendship, marriage, education, and religious community can have on individual behavior patterns," said senior author Tyler VanderWeele.

Then, how to be a warm mother or parent?

Reporting from the iMom page, Tuesday, October 26, there are 3 important things that make you a warm parent.

1. Be the main encouragement for your baby

One successful star said that when he was a child, his mother beamed when he imitated Donald Duck and put on funny skits. A mother who encourages her son in any field, including sports, acting, and academics tends to be warm, generous, and kind.

2. Be encouraging instead of just advising

The difference between a pusher and an advisor, the pusher will continue to follow developments while the advisor only sees from afar. Even though you need to give advice, follow it and give praise if your baby does their best.

3. Respect your children

Everyone should be respected, even when your son is learning to deal with rising testosterone levels. Maybe he could be sarcastic to parents or disobedient to the rules.

The warm mother does not label her son or call him by nicknames for his disobedience. Try to respect your son even when they are just learning about discipline.