Kids with 'tough love' upbringing 'do well in life'

Children who are raised with 'tough love' by their parents are likely to do well in life, a new report has found.

The report, by think tank Demos, suggested that 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.

These characteristics boost children's life chances, social mobility and opportunity and were profoundly shaped in pre-school years, according to the report.

The Building Character report, which analysed data from more than 9,000 households in the UK from the Millennium Cohort Study, showed that kids with "tough love" parents were twice as likely to develop good character capabilities by the age of five than children with "disengaged" parents.

The report also looked at factors such as family structure and income, reports the Daily Star.

It found that kids from the richest backgrounds were more than twice as likely to develop crucial characteristics than the poorest.

Children with married parents were twice as likely to show the traits than children from lone parent or step-parented families, the study found.

The researchers of the study said that when parental style and confidence were factored in, the difference in child character development between richer and poorer families disappeared; indicating parenting was the most important influence.