By In all cases, this type of education usually produces adults with little self-confidence and who are weak-willed.
Fear-based parenting takes many forms. Sometimes parents have trouble disciplining their children and resort to authoritarian gestures and actions, in order to maintain control in the long term. In other words, they often bully their children into obeying them.
In other cases, fear-based parenting comes from parents’ anxiety . They are afraid of doing their job wrong, or are overly wary of what might happen to their children. This way of approaching things ends up giving a particular nuance to parenting and often plants a seed of anxiety in children.
Another aspect of fear-based parenting, closely related to the previous one, is that of educating in turbulent times. Sometimes, the social environment is overwhelming in many countries. There are critical situations of insecurity, war or terrorism. In such a context, parenting and childhood do not follow their normal course, because the context implies great threats.
In this article, we will discuss the effects of fear-based parenting by authoritarian and anxious parents.
Fear-based parenting by some authoritarian parents
Authoritarian caregivers tend to set strict rules and expect their children to obey them without exception. When their children rebel and do not obey, they may face severe physical or emotional punishment.
The use of fear, through verbal threats and physical and emotional punishment, can become an educational strategy in this parenting style. The purpose would be, among other things, to instill fear in order to make the other obey without questioning anything.
It is important to note that producing fear is not necessarily a central and inherent trait of this style . Authoritarian education encompasses greater complexity and is influenced by various factors. However, in this case, we have decided to highlight the use of this emotion because it is one of the parenting styles where its use as a training tool could be wrongly observed.
Characteristics
According to an article by StatPearls , authoritarian parents exhibit the following behaviors with their children:
- The communication they have with the child is unidirectional , where they establish the rules and the child must only obey.
- There is no room for negotiation.
- They do not explain the rules and limits they set.
- They expect their children to meet the standards they set without fail.
- They punish the mistakes their children make.
- They are generally unaffectionate, rigid, and have high expectations.
This way of educating is very strict and severe. It imposes the demand for total and unconditional obedience and exercises behavioural regulation through psychological control induced by threats, physical or emotional punishment. In this context, the fear of reprimand and punishment can operate as a parenting tactic.
Consequences
The fear fostered by authoritarian parenting has consequences linked to the inherent effects of this parenting style, as noted in an article published on the occasion of the 2nd Conference on Modern Educational Technology and Social Sciences (ICCMTSS) in 2022. Some repercussions are:
- Low self-esteem: The high demands of fear-based parenting undermine children’s self-confidence and perceived self-worth . This is partly because excessive control and unreasonable rules undermine autonomy, making the person feel unable to make their own decisions.
- Mental inflexibility: The fear and continued rigidity created by authoritarian parents make it difficult for their children to develop psychological flexibility. In addition, low parental involvement and high levels of control lead to reduced functioning and personal well-being.
- Lack of psychological maturity: the dominance exercised over children causes them to lose their autonomy and fight to obtain approval in different areas of life, such as school or work.
- Mental disorders: Authoritarian parents who base their education on fear can generate constant anxiety in their children and trigger various mental problems such as depression.
The Encyclopedia of Infant and Early Childhood Development also highlights that children raised by authoritarian families tend to be dependent, submissive, socially unskilled, less trusting, less curious, and less engaged. They also tend to be aggressive, hostile, and shy.
Fear-Based Parenting by Anxious Parents
Sometimes parenthood causes strong anxiety for one or both parents. They want to do the best for the sake of their children, but they are not very clear about how to advance the upbringing. They feel that their little ones are very fragile and they can give in to the temptation of overprotecting them to prevent something from harming them , which can be risky, according to a publication of the magazine Aula Libre .
Characteristics
The central characteristic of these parents is excessive worry that something bad might happen to their children. Therefore, fear occupies a primary place in parenting. Let’s look at other characteristics of anxious parents, which are identified in this publication from the Journal of Affective Disorders:
- They tend to model avoidance behaviors in their children , rather than encouraging them to have new experiences.
- They tend to be avoidant and controlling.
- They can be critical and punitive.
- They express high levels of concern.
Parents of this type focus on the risks involved in each situation . If the child crawls, he could fall down the stairs. If he grabs the bottle, the milk could get stuck and he could choke. If he runs, he could fall. If he goes outside, he could get lost. So, without meaning to, they are basically giving their child the idea that he is always in danger.
Consequences
Fear-based parenting by anxious parents can have multiple negative repercussions on their children’s development and well-being. Some of these consequences are listed below:
- Anxiety: Children who grow up in an environment instilled with fear are often at higher risk for anxiety disorders , as they learn to perceive the world as a dangerous and threatening place. A study published in the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology found that parents’ anxiety is associated with their children’s anxiety.
- Depression: The same research indicates that parental anxiety is also related to depression. Although the authors do not explain why this association occurs, we believe that it could be due to the stress that parents generate, which makes the child feel overwhelmed, incapable and insecure all the time. Lack of security and perceived inability can contribute to the development of depressive symptoms.
- Low self-esteem: Continued exposure to overprotection and fear-based messages can cause children to doubt their abilities , worth, and self-efficacy. This is another reason why parental anxiety can trigger symptoms of depression.
- Experiential avoidance: Because the world is a dangerous place for these parents, children learn at a very early age to avoid new situations , as they are unknown and can be very risky. This can even extend to the social sphere, where they may refuse to interact with other people out of fear.
- Poor coping skills: Since avoidance is the primary coping strategy, people raised in fear by anxious parents often fail to develop other, more adaptive coping skills .
It is very common that an upbringing based on anxious fear results in anxious people. In adult life, they will have an extra fear that will be very difficult for them to get rid of. They may live more or less paralyzed in the face of reality, afraid to take the initiative and doubting everything they do.
Parenting styles, whether of authoritarian or anxious caregivers, are not established out of thin air. To a large extent, these ways of educating originate and are shaped by the childhood experiences they had in their family unit. Parents tend to replicate in the upbringing of their children the same norms and values under which they were raised.
Fear and a dangerous environment
We live in a world where there are real and concrete dangers for children . Surely, all parents have wondered at some point how to educate a child so that he can face these threats, without hiding, but also without exposing himself to them. It is not easy to achieve this balance.
A dangerous environment leads to an anxious upbringing, which this time is not determined by anxiety per se, but by the objective risks of a specific place or time. In the long term, this may translate into an adult life with many vague fears and no sense of autonomy and freedom.
Fear is not usually a good advisor, nor a good way to educate. A parenting based on fear often becomes a burden in the long run. If a father or mother is afraid, or relates to their children from a place of fear, something is not right .
It is worth thinking about this, since the effects of these random and excessive fears can cause major problems in adult life.