Parenting Style in Relation to Children's Mental Health and Self-Esteem:A Review of Literature

The base of one's childhood is built upon one's parents or caregivers, who help from world views, shape a child's attitude towards personal achievement, teach how to approach difficulties in life and satisfy their needs be they psychological and physiological. A parenting style is understood as a set of approaches and behaviors a parent elicits towards a child, therefore building an emotional environment in which the child is brought up in. Mental health of children depends on the way parents interact with them. The seed of good mental health is planted as early as childhood. Parents happen to be the most powerful catalysts in promoting good mental health in their children's lives. Parents' upbringing and child rearing styles are the important factors in changing and stabilizing the behavioral problems of children, similarly foundation of self-esteem is laid early in life. Present study reviews the relationship between parenting style and children's mental health and self-esteem that how different parenting styles (i.e., authoritative, authoritarian, permissive & uninvolved) affect the children's mental health and self-esteem.