Children who grow up with parents who take a "tough love" approach to their upbringing are better prepared to do well in life, according to a new report. Skip related content
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Children thrive under 'tough love'
Experiencing a combination of warmth and discipline means youngsters are more likely to develop skills such as application, self-regulation and empathy than those with laissez-faire, authoritarian or disengaged parents, according to the study.
The report said those characteristics boosted children's life chances, social mobility and opportunity and were profoundly shaped in pre-school years.
According to the study, by think tank Demos, children with "tough love" parents were twice as likely to develop good character capabilities by the age of five than children with "disengaged" parents.
The Building Character report, which analysed data from more than 9,000 households in the UK from the Millennium Cohort Study, also looked at factors such as family structure and income.
It found children from the richest backgrounds were more than twice as likely to develop crucial characteristics than the poorest.
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