How Your Parenting Style Could Be Impacting Your Child’s Brain

A team of researchers from the University of Michigan have found that harsh parenting during infancy can impact children right into adolesence. 

The data, which originated from the Future of Families and Child Well-being Study, was collected between February 1998 and June 2021. The current study sample includes an analysis of 173 youths.

“Harsh parenting in late childhood more specifically affected the corticolimbic circuit—a specific part of the brain that includes the amygdala and frontal cortex and is involved in processing and regulating emotion,” researches said.

However, it’s not all bad news.

The team also found that warm parenting — which they define as “responsiveness” — during middle childhood was associated with how the amygdala (a small part of the brain involved in emotion and processing threats) was differentially connected to other parts of the brain.

Importantly, parenting warmth predicted reduced anxiety and depression 15 years later during the Covid-19 pandemic due to its effects on the amygdala.

Why this research is hopeful

“Understanding these sensitive periods can inform more effective policy and intervention strategies,” says Luke Hyde, a University of Michigan professor of psychology and faculty associate at the Institute for Social Research.

Cleanthis Michael, a graduate student and the study’s first author, says the “findings indicate that earlier interventions may offer broader benefits for brain development”.

Michael added: “Because these experiences seemed to affect later risk for depression and anxiety, this research highlights periods of vulnerability and opportunity for treatments and policy to promote healthy, long-term development. Interventions for parents, and policies that support parents, may have more profound impacts earlier in life.”

Strict parenting is often detrimental

Counsellor Marissa Moore wrote for PsychCentral about strict parenting and said: “There are a few benefits to strict parenting, such as having your children behave in public or setting high expectations for themselves in achieving their goals.

“However, the long-term effects of authoritarian parenting tend to negatively affect children’s self-esteem, academic achievement, and overall life satisfaction.”

Instead, she recommends authoritative parenting, explaining: “Authoritative parenting, which finds a balance between having rules and supporting them if they don’t meet them, appears to have the best outcomes.”