How parents cause children's friendships to end [sciencedaily.com]

Yes, Cissy, I know what you mean. I read all the"Positive Discipline" books and whatnot  when my kids were young and I found them helpful to some degree, but I came to "positive parenting" as someone already highly motivated to break the cycle, so to speak. Yet no matter how many books I've read or how self aware I "think" I am, I often wonder how my own childhood wounds that lurk within affect my parenting outside of my conscious awareness. I'm skeptical that positive parenting can address these many layers. 

As a child, I never felt comfortable in my own skin, which definitely impeded the quality and stability of my friendships, so it seems pretty intuitive to me the way the researchers sum up their findings:

"Depressed and psychologically controlling parents create an affective climate that is detrimental to a child's well being, with problems that spill over into a children's social world." 

Jill Karson posted:

I love that someone is addressing this issue, which was a big one for me. I remember a time, in fifth grade, a friend came over (uninvited by me--I knew better than that) and, not being used to the screaming and yelling that was par for the course in my home, she ended up locking herself in the bathroom, crying hysterically and begging to go home. It didn't bode well for my budding social life, as you can well  imagine. I get a clenched stomach to this day thinking about it. Only good to come out of it is that I was highly cognizant of that dynamic when my kids had friends of their own over. 

Jill:
What a painful memory. Thank you for sharing. I feel for the kid you were and also for your childhood friend.

This part of the study is also important:

"A surprising finding from the study that was contrary to the researchers' expectations was that they did not find any evidence that positive parenting behaviors like warmth and affection altered the stability of children's best friendships.

"We were hoping that positive behaviors would help extend the life of friendships and that it would be a buffer or a protective factor," said Laursen. "This wasn't the case -- warmth and affection don't appear to make that much of a difference. It's the negative characteristics of parents that are key in determining if and when these childhood friendships end."

I think the whole positive parenting movement is well-intentioned but often totally misses and avoids the fact that parents are not regulated, and are dealing with traumatic stress from the past and sometimes the present, and that it's not just "negative parenting" that is the cause and positive parenting that's the fix. I do think parents are powerful and of course, it matters how we parent, especially after ACEs. But I'm not sure the "positive parenting" language speaks to parents as much as it speaks to those creating programs geared at or towards parents. What do you think?

Cis

I love that someone is addressing this issue, which was a big one for me. I remember a time, in fifth grade, a friend came over (uninvited by me--I knew better than that) and, not being used to the screaming and yelling that was par for the course in my home, she ended up locking herself in the bathroom, crying hysterically and begging to go home. It didn't bode well for my budding social life, as you can well  imagine. I get a clenched stomach to this day thinking about it. Only good to come out of it is that I was highly cognizant of that dynamic when my kids had friends of their own over.