The child-parent relationship has a major influence on most aspects of child development. When optimal, parenting skills and behaviors have a positive impact on children’s self-esteem, school achievement, cognitive development and behavior.
Parents differ in the degree to which they respond to children’s signals and control their behaviors. High quality care giving, characterized by a sensitive, cognitively stimulating, and moderately controlling approach, is crucial for children’s development and safety. Indeed, many of the skills children acquire during the early years are fundamentally dependent on the quality of their interactions with their parents.
For instance, parents play an important role in fostering children’s early learning (e.g., language and problem-solving abilities) and in shaping their social-emotional skills (e.g., emotion regulation, reactivity to stress, and self-esteem). Furthermore, parents have an influence on the development, maintenance, or cessation of children’s positive and/or negative behaviors. The quality of parenting children receive during the early years affects three key determinants of later success in school: their cognitive potential, their social skills, and their behavioral functioning. Considering the fact that parenting skills can be acquired and passed on from one generation to another, continuous efforts to improve the quality of care giving are important.
From encouraging schoolwork and sports to modeling values as a child grows (remember, they do as you do, not as you say!) parents exert enormous influence over their children's lives. They are, however, not the only on-the-ground influencers—especially after children enter school and begin interacting with the world at large.
Most parents work to give children the best start possible, but it's also important for parents to recognize that kids come into the world with their own temperaments, personalities, and goals. While parents may want to push their child down a certain path, a parents' job is to provide an interface with the world that ultimately prepares a child for complete independence and the ability to pursue whatever path they choose.
In a rapidly changing world, parenting can be subject to fads and changing styles, and parenting in some privileged circles has become a competitive sport. But the needs of child development as delineated by science remain relatively stable: safety, structure, support, and love.