Gained Privileges: Should Parents Give Their Child Allowance

When we think about privilege we tend to think about male privilege, the benefits that males have over females in society. But does privilege start at a young age? But not only if young boys experience privilege more than young girls, but if different races experience the same type of privilege within their youth and within their respective families. This is should parents give their child allowance essay in which the topic is discussed. 

The idea of Male privilege stems back in 1776 when Thomas Jefferson wrote “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” And with this continued their patriarchal traditions carried from Europe. And during this time women were seen as property to their husbands and not capable of being competent. Over time we see how Most men don’t ask for special benefits when it comes to certain things, but that the benefits of male privilege are so ingrained in society that there is a natural bias in favor of men. When talking specifically about male privilege it is very subjective in that its based on individual experience and perspective. There is no factual evidence to clearly define the lines of male privilege. Much of what we know about male privilege is based on individual’s opinions, stereotypes, and generalizations.

As we learn more about male privilege and how it is understood, we see it as something that is a social norm and therefore people just accept it. What about children? Do young boys experience benefits over young girls in society? In a typical household setting, it is seen that parents are more lenient on their sons than their daughters when going out or having relationships. This is due to parents wanting to protect their daughters because they are more precious in other words. In a lot of instances within Hispanic families and even white families we see that parents will let their sons do as they please while their daughters are a bit over-protected. In an article looking at this very particular thing shows 126 observational studies or 15,034 families where they observed these mothers and fathers differential use of controlling and supportive techniques for girls and boys. From 1970-1980’s, it was shown that parents used more of supportive techniques on boys, and in the 90’s it was shown that supportive strategies were switching to girls but even after all the testing it showed that there were minimal differences in parenting for boys and girls are minimal. In this article, we are shown that parents show a level of control when dealing with their kids and these strategies can be defined as any technique by the parent used to change, influence or alter their child’s thought’s feeling’s or behavior. In the meta-analysis, it tells us about Self- determination theory, which there are two types of parenting techniques, where one is a more controlling technique, and the other is a more lenient constructive and instructive technique. The more supportive technique is used to help benefit the child in life to help him or her with important decision making and other positive rationales, while the more controlling one are used to hinder the child in a more control-based way that ultimately has the child lashing out more in the future. With this, it shows that when parents are more lenient with their children is allows them to make smarter decisions with whatever it is, they encounter in life. And also, with supportive strategies we learn that children show less disruptive, and aggressive behaviors. With this, it tells us that children who are in more control from their parents often show the opposite to that of supportive strategies. They show more aggressive and disruptive behaviors than children whose parents use supportive strategies.

In previous findings from the meta-analysis by Lytton and Romney, they study 1,000 different families for 10 years showing that parents used harsher punishments on their boys rather than girls, girls were shown more supportive techniques in the way parents treated them. Along with this study we see that age can be a big factor in how parents treat their children. In the same study by Lytton and Romney, it was shown that mothers’ speech directiveness increased as children aged in order to prepare them for gender role conformity. And thus, differences decreased with age, specifically for disciplinary strictness. In more recent studies it is shown that parents do act for the most part the same way towards their children. Harsher punishments for sons, and supportive speech for daughters. However, there are other studies that haven’t found any use of gender differentiated parental techniques, or parents who use more supportive strategies for boys, and more controlling for girls. Past studies were were used as a part of this study and there were different criteria that had to be met. The studies of the specific families had to register through PRISMA and had to follow up on their guidelines. From this, studies were included if they either used observations of parental techniques or examined differences in the specific techniques being used. What this means is that families had to write papers to determine their eligibility for the study, while including how they parent and describing what they do. First, they had to check whether the parents’ submissions included any disciplinary articles on behavior and kids that they were looking for in the Meta-analysis. Next, they searched for a reference list of relevant reviews on parental control. Lastly, they had to search reference lists regarding dissertations that met their criteria for the study. The way they did this was pretty broad, in that they used only articles that dealt with parental constructs, ways they interacted with their child, and even the parent’s behavior. For the papers that were written, there were some that weren’t in English, there were papers submitted that were Turkish, Chinese, Spanish, French, and German.

Any disagreements that these two authors of this study had were resolved by reviewing a random subset of 100 studies, which was also met with oversampling. The meta-analysis performed had to be screened on the groundwork of their abstracts, and also a full text review of the selected studies. Before selecting the particular study there was an agreement that needed to be met by the ones performing the study, which included agreement on the abstract review, and the full-text review which were both met with satisfaction. To be able to make sure there were independent samples within the meta-analysis, several precautions that had to be made. In the studies with similar findings, the most relevant information had to be used or was included. Next, when publications reported gender difference control in the one sample, it created sub samples, or samples under the main samples, which were different ethnicities and age groups that are then treated as their own independent samples which are then reviewed and taken into account by a moderator performing this section of the study. Along with these two sub samples came another two taken into account which were parents who were recently divorced or parents who had been divorced for a long period of time. Lastly, if there were reporting’s of different outcomes of the same sample they had, they were averaged if the same type of parent control was concerned. If the outcomes reported were on different observation settings, they were averaged for the meta-analysis altogether, these observation settings could include a discipline task, teaching task, or even free play. In an analysis where the moderator is the task setting, a setting was randomly selected. Overall, this meta-analysis included data from 146 independent samples, which then were used to make 126 different publications on 15,034 families that were used. Later in the study, there was an interesting effect left on the meta-analysis because of the grouping of independent variables, which ultimately led to a sorting task that was used by professionals. These professionals were people who observed the different types of was that parents control their children, and they had been doing this for quite some time. There were 10 different professionals used, 5 of them were certified doctors, the other were graduate students on a more advanced level. From these professionals observing the level of control used by parents on their kids from the submitted publications, there were 313 different types of ways parents controlled their children. Of the 313 ways that parents controlled their children, there was a large amount that were very identical, the author performing this study grouped the different control methods that were as similar as can be, and this resulted in 147 different constructs. For this, there were separate cards printed for each parental control method along with its definition. Information about where the method came from was left out. Of the four settings that were observed, the cards that were made, were mentioned earlier in this writing which were the discipline setting, their ability to problem solve, their amount of free play, and the last category which was miscellaneous. The Professionals mentioned above were then asked to put the different ways of parental control into 3 categories, which were negative, positive and the last being neutral. We can’t get these confused with the four different settings that were being observed in the meta-analysis. The positive and negative methods being used in this study also correspond with supportive techniques and controlling techniques that are introduced in this paper. In the finished meta-analysis, there was a category included that was neutral and used during the sorting task these professionals created which observed the clearest use of control from parents and the most supportive.

After reviewing what they found with these constructs, the experts were met with a satisfactory agreement. Out of 117 of the different methods or constructs used, of the 10 professionals, 8 agreed on separating these methods in the 3 categories, which are positive, negative, and neutral. The methods that were met with less agreement than that of the 117 methods agreed upon, there were 30. 12 of the 30 were re-assessed and were put in with the 3 categories. The remaining 18 methods were obscure to the point where they contained both uses of negative and positive methods and couldn’t be put in the groups of more controlling techniques ore more supportive parenting techniques. These different methods observed and identified by the professionals were then separated into two groups, which were harsh punishments, and then the parent’s ability to show psychological control over their children. Some ways that this was observed were noting erratic emotional behavior, constraining verbal expressions, negative criticism, guilt induction, and the invalidations of the child’s feelings. For the assessments that are shown, there are three more mediators that were put into the final product, procedures, publications, and some sample characteristics. Some of the sample characteristics that could’ve been used could be age of the child at the time of the review, ranging from 0-18 years, or the percentage of boys and girls used in the observation, even the economic background, and the ethnicity of the families reviewed.

After all of the studies were completed, and observing the different techniques observed, it was found that parents use more of a controlling technique with that of boys rather than girls. Along with this, the researchers wanted to know if there was a difference between the parents in using more controlling strategies and it was found that mothers and fathers pretty much treat their children in the same manner, one doesn’t favor one more than the other in terms of how they control their child. In terms of the more harsh/physical treatment of their children, it was shown that mothers used more harsh discipline on their sons than their daughters. When parents showed more autonomous-supportive strategies, it was conducted that boys and girls in families were treated more or less the same. But from about the 70s-80s it was shown that parents showed more control over their sons than daughters during this period in time, and from the 1990s- present, it was shown that parents use more supportive strategies on girls. In conducting an analysis on the parents use of supportive strategies, it was found that both the mothers and fathers showed the same amount of supportive strategies.

In reviewing all the results performed in this meta-analysis, there were some interesting things. There weren’t a lot of differences that were observed in the mother and father’s method of parenting when it came to boys and girls, overall it was pretty close. Along with this, the four different types of ways parents control their children, which were positive techniques, negative or controlling techniques, the type of harsh and physical techniques their child receives, and the amount of psychological control parents have on their kids were really distinguished between girls and boys when the more controlling techniques were involved. Along with this we see that parents were more controlling with their younger children than their older children. In coming back to our original analysis, before 1990, it was shown that boys were shown the most positive techniques in the ways parents treated their children, and from 1990 to now, we see that parents show more of a positive technique for girls in the ways that their mothers and fathers show control over their children. Even from what most people see from parents and how they act with their children, mothers and fathers were pretty much the same in how they showed parental control with their sons and daughters. There are many ways that parents show a level of control over their children and these are just some of the ways that are being recorded some of the ways even you might have experienced as a child.