BC Council for Families

What’s the best way to develop characteristics of empathy, self-discipline and emotional control in kids? According to the new report Building Character from Demos, a UK-based social policy think tank, parents are children’s primary character builders. Parents who combine warmth and consistency – a style described in the report as 'tough love', and also known as authoritative parenting – are the most successful in developing the character capabilities in their children that underpin healthy, happy, successful adult life.

While factors such as family background, family structure, ethnicity and income level also shape children’s character development, the study confirms that parenting style heavily affects character development in the early years. Parental warmth, responsiveness, control and discipline have a large influence on children’s character development. Tough love or authoritative parents are confident in their own parenting abilities and feel competent to influence their child, and they take advantage of  opportunities to confront their child about mis-behaviour and to attend to their emotional needs.

Sonia Sodha, head of the research team that followed 9,000 families over eight years for the Demos study, commented that:  "What we think the implications are is that government should be ensuring that early years services ... need to be geared to helping parents develop the skills they need in order to be able to give their kids the best start in life possible."