Parenting Tasks: Roles, Goals, and Responsibilities

Despite contextual factors and varied goals associated with parenting, roles and responsibilities of parenthood are derived from national and international laws, policies, research, and practice.  Below are well-agreed upon fundamental tasks of parenthood ^[1] that extend across many cultures:

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  Safety and sustenance: ensuring adequate food, housing, clothing, medical care, and protection from harm in a multitude of contexts (e.g., neighborhood, household structure)

• Socioemotional support: providing warm and positive responsivity, affection, communication, expectations, affirmations, encouragement, emotional regulation, guidance, discipline, and modeling of appropriate behaviors
• Stimulation/instruction: encouraging achievement and learning through exposure to developmentally-appropriate and culturally-enriching experiences
• Supervision: monitoring whereabouts, communications, activities; collecting information from various sources; maintaining ongoing, reciprocal communications with children
• Structure: facilitating organized environments and activities via routines, rituals, scaffolding, and time management
• Socialization: supporting connections with communities, relatives, friends, peers, and institutions ^[2]