The warrants of parenting: Emotionality and reflexivity in economically disadvantaged families

Abstract

Despite the popularity of the education model in parenting work, parents' capacity for reflexive inner dialogue is becoming a newly sought virtue for handling parent-child difficulties. Based on a study of parenting experiences among Chinese parents in Hong Kong, this paper argues for a departure from the education model to incorporate reflexive parenting in the parental role. Reflexive parenting promises idiosyncratic solutions for the dynamic problems that parenting in contemporary society must address. Warrants of reflexive parenting are proposed as a framework with which helping professionals can adjust their strategies to help parents better handle the challenge of contemporary parenting.