How Can Financial Issues Affect Parenting?

Financial issues have a high impact on parenting. The presence or absence of money especially influences the parenting style parents adopt while raising their children. Child-rearing is one of the most challenging and worthwhile duties a person can undertake. Children have several needs that parents should strive to fulfill.

Finances, according to this article, are a major determinant of parenting success (among many other factors). Therefore, the effects of financial issues on parenting should not to be taken lightly.

Positive Effects of Financial Issues in Families

Money affects many aspects of family life. Either too much or too little of it creates extremes. Here are some positive ways finances can affect parenting:

1. Provision is easier. Parenting thrives when everyone’s physical and emotional needs are met. With sufficient finances, parents are able to provide good food, clothing, medicine, and education for their children, among other needs. In addition, the parents are generally more happy and more available for their children.
2. Nurturing is possible. Parenting’s main goal is nurturing, which is made possible by the availability of finances. For example, parents are able to pay for their children’s extracurricular activities, thereby building their sense of responsibility and creativity.
3. Better exposure. Better education, better playtime, better sleep, etc. Generally, children lead a more comfortable life when their family has enough money.
4. Good parenting styles. Families with sufficient finances tend to use an authoritative parenting style that is perhaps mixed with a bit of indulgent parenting. This parenting style creates relatively productive, successful children.

Financial Problems Affecting Families

Along with the positive effects, financial issues can also affect parenting in negative ways, as follows:

1. Spoiled children. Too much of a good thing can become detrimental. Some parents use finances to overly pamper their children. Spoiled children are difficult to manage and, in most cases, are emotionally unstable.
2. Bad parenting. Indulgent parenting and neglectful parenting are the direct result of parents who rely too much on what their finances provide for their children. However, the provision of only physical needs is not enough for the successful development of a child.
3. Lack of finances. Lack of finances will make it difficult for parents to provide for their children’s needs. Physical needs (such as food, shelter, and clothing), medicine, good education, and effective nurturing are only attainable if sufficient finances are available.

Financial issues affect parenting whether the parents are rich or poor. The impact is huge on both sides. Parents need to manage their children to prevent them from growing into adults who are either too comfortable or too deprived.

Good parenting styles should also be the goal of every parent regardless of financial status. Parents with low finances can make up for the same through physical availability and emotional care. They should use the little they have to provide as much as they can. This, according to this journal, is the only way to optimize parenting goals and achieve children’s full potential.

References

• Gutman, Leslie Morrison, and Jacquelynne S. Eccles. “Financial Strain, Parenting Behaviors, and Adolescents’ Achievement: Testing Model Equivalence between African American and European American Single- and Two-Parent Families.” Child Development 70, no. 6 (1999):  1464–1476. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8624.00106
• Scott, Stephen. “National Dissemination of Effective Parenting Programmes to Improve Child Outcomes.” The British Journal of Psychiatry 196, no. 1 (2010): 1–3. Retrieved from https://bit.ly/2og9F8j