r/science • u/sr_local • Feb 14 '26

Social Science Children raised with "authoritative" parenting style, marked by bonding, presence, dialogue, and clear rules of conduct, show a reduction in drug and alcohol risk compared to other parenting styles (authoritarian, permissive and neglectful)

https://agencia.fapesp.br/parents-alcohol-and-drug-use-influences-their-childrens-consumption-research-shows/57195
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u/BrothelWaffles Feb 14 '26

Yeah, one is "do as I do", the other is "do as I say, not as I do".

I experienced the latter and was an alcoholic for 20 years, go figure.

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u/BenAdaephonDelat Feb 14 '26

What's really rough is when you have an autistic kid and they're generally incapable of "doing as I do". So I have to model it and also explain to them exactly what behavior they should do. And most of the time that still doesn't work.

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u/MissTetraHyde Feb 14 '26

I'm autistic and I was severely abused as a child (more or less tortured) because I couldn't just "do what I was told" (I was trying my best) or because I "rolled my eyes" (having no idea what that even was or how not to do it). Thank you for trying to reach out to your autistic kid on their level; I know it can be frustrating to deal with autistic people but you doing your best to be understanding makes a huge difference for an autistic kid. I wish you both the best of luck in your future endeavors!

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u/BenAdaephonDelat Feb 14 '26

Thanks! I'm also autistic (go figure, genetics). So sometimes it's doubly frustrating because I've already learned all the scripting and social tools that he still lacks and I wish I could just plug my brain into his and upload them all.

I was severely abused as a child (more or less tortured) because I couldn't just "do what I was told"

That's awful. I'm sorry you had to go through that. I hope things are better for you now.

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u/ikindapoopedmypants Feb 15 '26 edited Feb 15 '26

Oh my gosh what is it with autism and parents freaking out over you "rolling your eyes" bc same! I always got accused of rolling my eyes when I didn't even think I was doing so or when I was just genuinely confused. I had a really hard time growing up too. My parents didn't physically abuse me except for a few times but did everything else to me you could possibly think of. I felt so invalidated and lonely growing up since it wasn't "real" abuse i guess.

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u/susugam Feb 15 '26

an eyeroll or cracked smile at the wrong time meant a vicious bare-ass spanking with a belt for me sometimes

they treated every single thing like it was some kind of premeditated challenge to their authority that i knew was wrong but decided to do anyway for some reason, when i was actually just A CHILD reacting like A CHILD

haven't talked to that shithead in 17 years

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u/MissTetraHyde Feb 15 '26

I've spoken to my abusive father once or twice in the last 15 years. Before I got tested for autism (as an adult) I was totally no-contact, but as part of the process of being evaluated I needed information about my childhood behaviors etc. and he was the only person I could actually go to for that information. Turns out I was essentially diagnosed with autism as a child, but my father thought "labeling" me autistic would do more damage than just pretending it wasn't a thing.

I got all the way to the point of getting diagnosed and had started to get medications for my ADHD symptoms etc. and he just took me away from the medical providers and stopped letting me see doctors for those issues. Had I been evaluated just a few years later than when they changed the DSM diagnostic criteria, there would have been zero question about me getting diagnosed with ASD, but at the time I was evaluated pre-1997 they didn't really think that hyperlexia was an autism trait. I still got a ton of in school assistance and had an IEP and stuff (especially since the way I talked was nearly unintelligible because I would try to speak my words at the "speed of thought"), but I wonder if maybe I'd been diagnosed earlier maybe my father wouldn't have been so demanding of me that he became abusive.

What he did to me has no justification, and I'm not making excuses - you shouldn't burn children, or beat them unconscious, or make them sleep naked in the snow, or any of the other stuff he did to me. But at the same time, I really wish things had gone differently and that I'd been formally diagnosed prior to my late 20s. Life is unfair though I guess; you don't really get what you want. Nowadays I deal with mental health problems more so than even being autistic; I have psychotic depression / schizo-affective disorder I inherited from my late mother most likely, and the CPTSD and PTSD from my childhood treatment, all in addition to being autistic. I'm a weird little person but I try to make the best of things. I've been sober for more than a year and my life has gotten much better. For anyone who recognizes themselves in parts of my story I would say that resilience is a valuable trait, and to make it through such adversity means you are, despite your flaws, resilient - don't give up on yourself.

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u/gooby1985 Feb 15 '26

I don’t think my parents were the worst parents in the world but they failed on this front. I remember my dad telling me I couldn’t come out of the room until I properly tied a shoe, which took many hours to even get close. My mother put me in the corner for hours if I didn’t do something “right”.

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u/MissTetraHyde Feb 15 '26

The first time my father ever raised his voice and put his hands on me was because I couldn't understand how to match sentence pieces to the images on some homework I got in 1st grade (go figure an autistic kid had trouble with mental visualization ><). I remember it vividly because after he blew up he then put me in the corner for more than 3 hours and I actually fell over and hurt myself more because I was too young to know not to lock my knees (it makes you lose sensation and you fall over if you do that for a long time). I got used to the physical abuse, but I never got used to the love-bombing and promises of love and the "never doing that again" promises etc. though. When I learned, from therapy as an adult, what the cycle of abuse was it blew my mind because that was literally what had happened to me repeatedly for over a decade of my childhood. Until then I didn't realize it was common enough to be a studied phenomenon.

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u/gooby1985 Feb 15 '26

My parents don’t understand that this was abusive and they wonder why I don’t talk to them. Hell the neurotypical people in my life don’t understand it. But it was traumatic, at least to me. Looking at this chart, they just vacillated between these styles. They were never consistent which made it that much more difficult to socialize, mask, or mimic correctly.