Historical Context
Although within the Finch and Burroughs households there are parents present, they do not provide a supportive and involved parenting style to further their children’s self-esteem, their social competence, or their responsiveness; they are neglectful parents. Developmental psychologist, Diana Baumrind, formulated three parenting styles: authoritarian, permissive, and authoritative. From the basis of Baumrind’s parenting styles, Maccoby and Martin, who worked with parent-child interaction, added a fourth parenting style, neglectful or uninvolved parenting. Besides fulfilling the children’s physical needs, neglectful parents are otherwise distant, detached, and disengaged from the child’s life ("Diana Baumrind's 3 Parenting Styles: Get a Full Understanding of the 3 Archetypical Parents"). The neglectful parenting style reoccurs throughout Burroughs’ Running with Scissors in the Finches and Burroughs’ households. This unsupportive environment causes Augusten, and the Finch children, to have low self-esteem along with social incompetence. The parents in these households, especially the Finches, have very few demands and rules, giving the children almost unlimited freedom. Although this is true, this kind of freedom usually results in the children having low communication and responsiveness towards others ("Diana Baumrind's 3 Parenting Styles: Get a Full Understanding of the 3 Archetypical Parents").
Neglectful parents only provide their children with the bare essentials, food and shelter,
but no love and affection. “Routinely these parents are too busy or self-involved to support
their child in school functions, teach life skills and encourage socially acceptable behavior” ("The Uninvolved Parenting Style"). This is similar to the Finch household. They are not involved within their children’s lives and do not teach them life skills. They leave them to learn for themselves. There is no one to look after them, so they become involved in some unhealthy habits, such as smoking and doing drugs. No one is there to tell them that this behavior is wrong, and could harm them, because they are left to discover this on their own. Dr. Finch and Deirdre never told their children what was socially acceptable, or what was expected of them. Therefore, in most situations, people did not see them as socially acceptable. Augusten and some of the Finch children always looked a little “off” to most people. When Natalie and Augusten went looking for jobs, they had been smoking and doing marijuana, and no one seemed interested in them, because they had no experience and behaved abnormally. They do not have parents that cared enough to tell them this, so they were left unknowing of what they did wrong.
Neglectful parenting does occur, and there are many long lasting effects on the children who experience it firsthand. According to The Positive Parenting Centre, some effects that may occur within these children are: developing a sense of unimportance to the parent, becoming emotionally withdrawn from social situations, showing patterns of truancy in school, developing low self-esteem and lack of self-control, increasing the chance of addiction to drugs and
alcohol, and developing patterns of delinquency during adolescence ("The Uninvolved Parenting Style"). Many of these effects can be seen in Augusten from Running with Scissors. He consistently did not attend school and later completely dropped out, he experimented with drugs, alcohol, and smoking often, he endlessly felt unimportant, except when he was around Neil Bookman, and became uninvolved in social situations. This is a perfect example of a person who is affected by neglectful parenting and what it does to children. These parents who practice neglectful parenting, though they may not realize it at the time, need to be educated on the effects of their parenting style toput them on a better path that leads to healthier results.
Neglectful parents only provide their children with the bare essentials, food and shelter,
but no love and affection. “Routinely these parents are too busy or self-involved to support
their child in school functions, teach life skills and encourage socially acceptable behavior” ("The Uninvolved Parenting Style"). This is similar to the Finch household. They are not involved within their children’s lives and do not teach them life skills. They leave them to learn for themselves. There is no one to look after them, so they become involved in some unhealthy habits, such as smoking and doing drugs. No one is there to tell them that this behavior is wrong, and could harm them, because they are left to discover this on their own. Dr. Finch and Deirdre never told their children what was socially acceptable, or what was expected of them. Therefore, in most situations, people did not see them as socially acceptable. Augusten and some of the Finch children always looked a little “off” to most people. When Natalie and Augusten went looking for jobs, they had been smoking and doing marijuana, and no one seemed interested in them, because they had no experience and behaved abnormally. They do not have parents that cared enough to tell them this, so they were left unknowing of what they did wrong.
Neglectful parenting does occur, and there are many long lasting effects on the children who experience it firsthand. According to The Positive Parenting Centre, some effects that may occur within these children are: developing a sense of unimportance to the parent, becoming emotionally withdrawn from social situations, showing patterns of truancy in school, developing low self-esteem and lack of self-control, increasing the chance of addiction to drugs and
alcohol, and developing patterns of delinquency during adolescence ("The Uninvolved Parenting Style"). Many of these effects can be seen in Augusten from Running with Scissors. He consistently did not attend school and later completely dropped out, he experimented with drugs, alcohol, and smoking often, he endlessly felt unimportant, except when he was around Neil Bookman, and became uninvolved in social situations. This is a perfect example of a person who is affected by neglectful parenting and what it does to children. These parents who practice neglectful parenting, though they may not realize it at the time, need to be educated on the effects of their parenting style toput them on a better path that leads to healthier results.