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No kids are the same so does parents. There is a wide range of pareting styles, some are attaching kids-parents, some of tiger Mums and lion dads, whereas some finds the balance between authorative and attachment, most parents will always find the best way for themselves and family. Parenting is not rocket science, and it is a difficult learning curve for many, so its recommend to not commenting on another parent’s methods such as cuddling their kids too much.
The parenting styles commonly used in psychology today are based on the work of Diana Baumrind, a developmental psychologist at the University of California at Berkeley, in the 1960s. Maccoby and Martin also contributed by refining the model in the 1980s.
Baumrind’s theory is that there is a close relationship between the type of parenting style and children’s behavior. Different parenting styles can corelates to different child development and child outcomes.
The four types of parenting styles observed by Baumrind and refined by Maccoby are:
1. Authoritative
2. Authoritarian (or disciplirian)
3. Permissive (or indulgent)
4. Neglectful (or uninvolved)
Parenting styles are categorized based on two dimensions of parenting behavior and styles:
Demandingness refers to the extend parents control their children’s behavior or demand their maturity.
Responsiveness refers to the degree parents are accepting and sensitive to their children’s emotional and developmental needs.
Now let’s go through each parenting styles one by one:
1. Authoritative
This is a parenting style characterized by high responsiveness and high demands. Authoritative parents are responsive to the child’s emotional needs while having high standards. They set limits and are very consistent in enforcing boundaries. This parenting style generally produces the best outcomes in children. Preschoolers raised by authoritative parenting style：
- Tend to be happy and content.
- Are independent and self-reliant.
- Develop good social skills.
- Have good emotional regulation and self-control.
- Express warmth and cooperate with peers.
- Explore a new environment without fear.
- Are competent and assertive.
And children of authoritative parents tend to:
- Achieve higher academic success.
- Engage more in school activities.
- Develop good self-esteem.
- Have better mental health — less depression, anxiety, suicide attempts, delinquency, alcohol, and drug use.
- Interact with peers using competent social skills.
- Exhibit less violent tendencies.
- Are well-adjusted.
2. Authoritarian
Like authoritative parents, authoritorian parents have high demand of their children but the main difference to authoritative parents is that their is only one way communication. It is a style characterized by high demand but low responsiveness. Mistakes tend to be punished harshly without constructive feedback and nurturing.
Children raised under authoritarian parents tend to:
- Associate obedience and success with love
- Display more aggressive behavior outside the home
- Act fearful or overly shy around others
- Have lower self-esteem
- Have difficulty in social situations due to a lack of social competence
- Conform easily, yet also suffer from depression and anxiety
- Struggle with self-control because they are rarely able to make choices and experience natural consequences
3. Permissive
This parenting style is characterized by low demand but high responsiveness. Permissive parents tend to be very loving, yet provide few guidelines and rules. These parents tend to be very responsive to their children’s emotional needs, however do not set the boundary and limits for their children.
Permissive parents tend to be:
- Loving and nurturing, but without rules and boundaries.
- Emotionally supportive, highly responsive, and less demanding.
- More of a friend than a parent to the child.
- Offer minimal structure, order, or schedule.
- Avoid conflicts and confrontations with the child.
- Want to be liked instead of upsetting the children.
- Provide no consequences for their child’s negative behavior.
- Have minimal routines or schedules for children and the few that they may have, are inconsistent and often broken to give in to the child’s demands.
- Excessively use rewards to get things done.
- Allow too much screen time and junk food.
- Use toys and gifts to motivate their child behave well.
- Focus on the child’s freedom at the expense of learning to accept limits.
Permissive parenting style tend to have the below effects on children:
- Trouble regulating emotions.
- Rebellious when their demands are challenged.
- Have little self-control or self-regulation.
- Have difficulty in following the rules.
- Lack discipline and oppose authority.
- May not take responsibility for their behavior.
- Studies indicate an association between permissive parenting style and behavioral problems and substance abuse in teenagers.
- They may be demanding and have difficulty sharing.
- Lack of boundaries results in insecurity in children.
4. Neglectful
Neglectful parenting is characterized by unresponsiveness to children’s needs. Uninvolved parents make few to no demands of their children and they are often indifferent, dismissive, or even completely neglectful.
Parents with this style of raising kids tend to：
- Act emotionally distant from their children
- Limit interactions with their children because they’re too overwhelmed by their own problems
- Provide little or no supervision
- Set few or no expectations or demands for behavior
- Show little warmth, love, and affection towards their children
- Skip school events and parent-teacher conferences
And this type of parenting style usually would tends to have kids becoming:
- Anxious or stressed due to the lack of family support
- Are emotionally withdrawn
- Fear becoming dependent on other people
- Have an increased risk of substance abuse
- Must learn to provide for themselves
- Tend to exhibit more delinquency during adolescence
There is no absolute right or wrong parenting style, however studies have shown that the most balanced and best parenting style tend to be authoritative. Apart from adopting a balanced parenting style, parents can also improve their parenting skills by doing some parent effectiveness training or P.E.T. which we can delve into in our later blogs.
What is your parenting style? And what do you think is the best parenting style for your child/rent? Feel free to share in the comments or join and post on our Facebook Healthy Mum and Bub Group from here.