Filipino Parenting Style
Filipino kids are raised with various unique child-rearing practices by true-blooded Filipino parents. For instance, while teaching their children the virtue of respecting elders, parents always urge them to say “po” and “opo.” Parents become role models of hospitality to their children by promoting life values. However, experts believe that parenting style is more important than the specific parenting practices in the Philippines. Why do you think that is? What is our country’s hegemonic parenting style, and how does it impact Filipino children? Let’s get started.
Parenting in the Philippines
Parenting style is a major and common subject in Filipino parenting research. Many studies and research have been conducted on the Philippine parenting style. One of them is Diana Baumrind’s 1966 study which discovered two aspects of parenting: demandingness and responsiveness. A direct and domineering approach characterizes the Demanding aspect. Responsiveness, on the other hand, promotes caring nature and a loving upbringing. On that note, we could classify Filipino parents into two groups based on their parenting style. There are different types of parents: authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive.
Authoritarian parents are believed to be very demanding but indifferent. Permissive parents are neither demanding nor responsive. Authoritative parents, however, are both demanding and responsive, while negligent parents are known to be neither demanding nor responsive. These are some of the most commonly known categories of Filipino parents when it comes to raising their kids in the household. Now, let us now discover more about the most well-known, traditional parenting styles in the Philippines. Since time immemorial, this parenting style has been ingrained in Filipino society.
Authoritative Parenting Style
The authoritative parenting style is considered the most successful in providing protective factors against children’s risk behaviors and supporting emotional and psychological well-being. In reality, diverse parenting styles exist based on a family’s geography, socioeconomic class, and other household aspects. For instance, in Cebu City, most parents continuously used a liberal parenting style. Hence, as Cebuano, we can barely notice our parents being excessively strict and authoritarian towards us. However, an authoritative parenting style is common among fathers toward daughters. That’s correct! You should expect fathers to be extremely protective of their daughters no matter where you go in the Philippines. Not only does this symbolize love and protection, it also depicts a Filipino’s social norms and values. That’s why parenting styles vary depending on the gender of the parents and the gender of the children. Daughters reported stricter, more authoritative, or authoritarian parents than sons.
For Filipinos, the authoritative style has been proven to predict higher educational attainment, self-esteem, and protection against sons being involved in drugs and daughters becoming pregnant at a young age. This style scored best for teenagers wanting to spend time with family and parents on most themes, and it corresponds to Filipinos’ family-centric values.
The authoritative parenting style is an indispensable parenting style for most Filipino families, usually combined with a permissive approach.
If you ask any Filipino child, including me, anticipate that we most likely have experienced both parenting styles in our homes. In an authoritative parenting style, it is mostly manifested and characterized for children by profuse praise and prizes, especially when you perform well at school.
Despite their similar sound, authoritative and authoritarian parenting is not the same. The authoritarian parenting style has high expectations but low communication. An authoritarian parent has high expectations but provides little support. Most of the time, they also want to exert control over their children. Because of their stern character, communication often ends in dispute and fighting, especially when the children are old enough to “fight back.” However, as mentioned above, the authoritative parenting style is more prevalent in a typical and ordinary home here in the Philippines. The authoritarian style is common in wealthy and aristocratic families, where children are nurtured to ensure the family’s fortune. But, no matter how different each Filipino family’s parenting style is, one thing is certain: family ties here are deep and unbreakable.
Permissive Parenting Style
As opposed to authoritative parenting, permissive parenting is more relaxed, lenient, and understanding. As previously said, parenting styles vary from family to family and are typically a combination of authoritative and permissive. However, there is a select minority who prefer the permissive style. Permissive parents often act as counselors rather than decision-makers. A permissive parenting style, at some point, tends to forgive a child’s behavior easily and does not set limitations on the child’s conduct.
Permissive parents may say things such as, “I say yes to my child mostly” or “my child does everything they want.” Permissive parents have difficulty setting age-appropriate limits. Instead, they delegate decision-making to their children. Much research indicated that liberal parenting appeared to be good for children in late adolescence and emerging adulthood. This parenting style was discovered to be protective against a daughter’s depressed symptoms. It primarily relieves the youngster of all forms of pressure.
In one study, Child Rearing Practices Among Families among Countryside Philippines, researchers discovered that the permissive parenting style is the most prevalent in some places in the Philippines. This parenting style emphasizes communication. According to the study, permissive parents act as advisors rather than someone who takes the lead. Furthermore, a permissive and lax parenting style may sometimes tend to “disregard” children’s conduct and not place boundaries on their behaviors.
Filipino parents may adopt whichever of the two, and either works and shapes a child into the person they were born to be. Most Filipino parents, especially the older generations, are old school, and values are paramount to them. So it’s not surprising that there are parenting practices that only authentic Filipino parents could implement in their homes.
How Filipino Parents Raise Their Child
Several characteristics distinguish Filipinos from people from other nations. It is most evident in parenting, where Filipino parents have quite distinct ways of instilling values in their children while still keeping them physiologically strong and healthy. Here are some deep-rooted Filipino parenting practices:
Pagmamano
Filipino parents educate their children from a young age, as early as the baby years, to exhibit humility and respect for older people through pagmanano, where a child brings the elderly’s hand to one’s forehead.
Always saying the words “po” and “opo.”
A genuine Filipino respect manifests itself in our terminology as well. Filipino parents taught their children not just to say “po” and “opo” when addressing elders but also when speaking to persons in positions of authority, such as teachers, church elders, and police officers.
Taking off shoes/slippers
Like our Japanese and Korean neighbors, we practice removing our shoes before entering someone’s home as a symbol of respect.
Mealtime with the family
Mealtimes should be spent together as a family, per the golden rule. Some of us may have become accustomed to hearing the phrase “Huwag paghintayin ang pagkain” or “Don’t make the meal wait.” Everyone should be prepared to eat as a family when the meal is served.
Asking kids to showcase their talents in front of the guests
Filipinos are natural performers, so much so that Filipino parents teach their children from an early age when to take out the singer-dancer-actor card when there’s a receptive audience at family gatherings. Party planners should not be concerned about the program because children understand what it’s like to be requested by their parents to perform a routine for the entertainment of their relatives. What is the impetus? A kiss from an adoring Tito or Tita, or maybe a present if they feel generous.
Having fun in the rain
Growing up in a Filipino neighborhood, bathing in the rain is something you could never miss. Playing in the rain is an adventure many Filipino children remember fondly. Having no cares in the world and simply enjoying the soothing pelt of rain on their body will be one of their loveliest childhood memories.
Aguinaldo Pamamasko
If Filipino kids have a favorite holiday custom, it’s Christmastime, when they can request their godparents – ninongs and ninangs for aguinaldo or Christmas money. It’s a meaningful custom, not so much for the money as it is for rekindling relationships with their godparents.
Utang na loob
Gratitude is taken seriously in the Philippines. Acts of charity and compassion are remembered because we are taught from a young age the value of utang ng loob or lifelong indebtedness.
How Filipino Parents Discipline Kids
In the Philippines, parents educate and discipline their children by employing corporal or bodily punishment in the following ways: spanking with a hand, pinching, slapping with an object, twisting the child’s ear, pulling the hair, salt-kneeling, or shaking. Yes, that’s right! And you can read all of them in numerous studies, and I can vouch that most of them are true. Some of these corporal punishments are still in existence. The tsinelas and bakus are the most popular forms of physical punishment. Our parents spank us with these objects. It means the more tears a youngster sheds, the more likely the parent will stop spanking. I’ve been there, and looking back; it’s not that terrible. I was taught a good value, although in a hard way.
There are two ways to discipline a kid in the Philippines.
In the Filipino context: positive and negative. Most of the time, what happens in a typical Filipino family is a mixture of positive and negative approaches. A healthy Filipino household discipline their children with moderation and a combination of positive and negative tactics. And these homes do exist, as I can attest as someone who was reared in one of them.
Praising, extending gifts and privileges, and rewarding the youngsters are positive tactics. Negative approaches include scolding, spanking, instilling fear, and isolating. Some may regard these forms of discipline as abuse. That theory, I believe, has more than one answer. To some extent, it may become abusive, but getting a tiny, tolerable taste of it as a child is part of the process. In our neighborhood, we call it “the Filipino parent ways.” Imposing these punishments and sanctions on a child, particularly in the early 2000s, was a part of our daily life. But, as previously said, it all comes down to the severity of the punishment.
The usual and appropriate level for us is one that would only cause us to cry for a split second before we realized we had misbehaved. These disciplinary acts are still fresh in my memory as a youngster in the early 2000s. And there’s nothing awful about them when I look back – merely a classic, nostalgically wonderful childhood memory.
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