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1.2: Parenting Tasks: Roles, Goals, and Responsibilities

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    Despite contextual factors and varied goals associated with parenting, roles and responsibilities of parenthood are derived from national and international laws, policies, research, and practice. Below are well-agreed upon fundamental tasks of parenthood [1] that extend across many cultures:

    • photo of a women feeding her child
      Figure 1. A parent feeding their child exhibits the “providing sustenance” task of parenting. (Photo Credit: Andrea Piacquadio, Pexels License)

      Safety and sustenance: ensuring adequate food, housing, clothing, medical care, and protection from harm in a multitude of contexts (e.g., neighborhood, household structure)

    • Socioemotional support: providing warm and positive responsivity, affection, communication, expectations, affirmations, encouragement, emotional regulation, guidance, discipline, and modeling of appropriate behaviors
    • Stimulation/instruction: encouraging achievement and learning through exposure to developmentally-appropriate and culturally-enriching experiences
    • Supervision: monitoring whereabouts, communications, activities; collecting information from various sources; maintaining ongoing, reciprocal communications with children
    • Structure: facilitating organized environments and activities via routines, rituals, scaffolding, and time management
    • Socialization: supporting connections with communities, relatives, friends, peers, and institutions [2]
    1. Bradley, R. H. (2007). Parenting in the breach. How parents help children cope with developmentally challenging circumstances. Parenting: Science and Practice, 7(2), 99-148. ↵
    2. Laukkanan, E., Karppinen, S., Maattaa, K., & Uusiautti, S. (2014). Emphases of parenting in the light of three comparison groups. International Education Studies, 7(3), 67-77. http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/ies.v7n3p67↵

    This page titled 1.2: Parenting Tasks: Roles, Goals, and Responsibilities is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Diana Lang via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform; a detailed edit history is available upon request.