Happy Children: Parenthood empowerment and development

Abstract

A strong and solid parent-child relationship may well be the fundamental basis for the child’s healthy personality development. Within thePerson Centered Approach, parenting styles marked by worth conditions, may have an important conditioning role in the child’s personality development, or in the development of the child’s self. Relationship patterns and parenting styles are alsothe means of transmitting children personal, social and universal values, taking an important part in their moral development, whilst these orient and guide the child’s own values. The study’s main purpose is to investigate the existing relations between values, and parenting styles in a convenient Portuguese sample of 112 mothers and 128 fathers from the Lisbon metropolitan area. A better comprehension of the relation between these two variables in family framework, will hopefully contribute to increase the knowledge of the core concepts: worth conditions, unconditional positive regard and the child’s self development.