American Parenting Styles

A parent’s parenting styles are as diverse as the world we live in today. Nowadays, parents only want what is best for their children and their parenting styles plays a crucial role in the development of children which will in the long run, not only effect the child’s childhood years, but later prolong into their adult life as well.

In the early 1960s, psychologist Diana Baumrid conducted a research, analyzing child-parent behavior, seeking to identify parenting styles. The Baumrid study and other further studies identified four main styles of parenting (Miller, 2010): the authoritative parenting style was characterized by fair rules and consequences; The Authoritarian parenting style was characterized by strict rules and harsh punishment; the permissive parenting style was characterized by minimal rules with little or no consequences; the uninvolved parenting style was characterized by no rules, and parent presence was almost non-existent. In this paper, I’m going to look at the authoritarian style of parenting in an attempt to draw out its characteristics and its immediate and later impacts on children impact.

According to Arnett’s book on human development, the four basic types of parenting styles that exist are categorized as neglectful, permissive, authoritative, and authoritarian. Ideally, according to Arnett’s findings, most parents should aim to be authoritative parents, meaning they should aim to posses essential qualities in order to ensure successful communication with their child. Authoritative parents are described as flexible with their children, supportive, and democratic. However, they should also be assertive, set boundaries, and have high standards for their children as well. Even though being an authoritative parent best possible way to raise a child, according to Arnett’s articles, many parents are still permissive and

Parenting styles are used to define in what manner a parent interacts with their child. A theory, first proposed by Baumrind, breaks down parenting styles into three different levels of control and warmth. Permissive parenting involves leniency and indulging the child’s needs, whereas authoritarian parenting involves high levels of control and punishment. In the middle lies authoritative parenting, a style of parenting that practices control, but also values communication and individuality (Karmakar, 2015). In North America, parents are often stuck between an authoritative and permissive style of parenting. Oftentimes, it is believed that a child receives greater happiness and growth from a warm family that directs little control over the actions of the child (Barton & Hirsch, 2014). However, the opposite is true; parents enforcing an authoritative style aided children in higher confidence, allowing them to tackle difficult activities (Hibbard & Walton, 2014). Due to the lack of benefits attained from a permissive style of parenting, it is encouraged that an authoritative style, focusing on warmth and control, be adopted.

The four basic types of parenting styles include neglectful, permissive, authoritative, and authoritarian. Ideally, most parents should aim to be authoritative, meaning they should aim to posses essential qualities in their kind of parenting, such as being flexible with their children, being supportive, and democratic. Authoritative parents should also be assertive, set boundaries, and have high standards for their children as well. Even though being an authoritative parent best possible way to raise a child, many parents are permissive and neglectful, meaning they tend to present negative characteristics, for example, parents tend to distance themselves with their children’s issues and letting their children do whatever they want. The children then end up becoming demanding, spoiled, and often times uneducated with their family’s morals. Authoritarian parents, however, are the complete opposites of both neglectful and permissive parents. Authoritarian parents can be described as over-demanding, autocratic individuals. They tend to set very high standards for their children and demand to be obeyed, or else the children receive punishment without reflection of the issues. In Amy Chua’s essay, “Why Chinese Mother’s are Superior”, it is clear that she describes herself as an authoritarian parent. However, it is also clear to the audience that the decisions she makes for her children are one-sided, making her believe she is always right. Chua does not look back to reflect on

Do you think or believe American society provides too much or too little quality education on the role of parenting and how that shapes our children and generations to come?

Authoritarian is only one of three parenting styles that Baumrind details. The other two styles include authoritative and permissive. These two variations in parenting styles were seen in the way my relatives and friends’ parents approached parenting. I observed how the parents of my close friend handled parenting. They maintained control over aspects in my friend’s life like school and chores but allowed the freedom to make decisions in areas of social activities. The most striking difference between my parents and my friend’s is the use of reasoning and the expression of warmth. Her parents provided justification behind their commands and or punishments while maintaining a sense of love and affection. The bond and love that is evident between my friend and her parents is not as strong in the relationship between my parents and me. The style that her parents exhibit is known as authoritative because of their focus on some parental control, use of reasoning and warmth. While on the other hand, my cousins raised their children in a completely different manor using a permissive parenting style. While they provide obvious love and affection towards their children, they fail to exert control and regulations. They did not have any real sense of rules in their household. Their children tend to act and do whatever they wanted with little to no repercussions.

With over three hundred million Americans and over six billion people worldwide parenting skills are essential to maintain a healthy society. Parenting involves many aspects and requires many skills. It is a time to nurture, instruct, and correct to develop fundamental skills children will need to be mature, responsible, and contributing adults to a society. There are four commonly identified parenting styles; authoritarian, authoritative, permissive, and uninvolved parenting. Of the four parenting styles, two remain on opposite ends of the parenting spectrum. These two styles; authoritarian, and permissive both have deleterious results that are often visible throughout different developmental stages, such as rebellious behavior. As well

Parenting styles have been widely defined by Baumrind into three categories, authoritative, authoritarian and permissive. Parenting styles can be defined as a pattern of attitudes in how parents choose to express and communicate with their children. These styles are categorized based on the level of nurturance, parental control and level of responsiveness (Dwairy, 2004). Authoritative style exhibits high levels of demand, responsiveness and nurturance; authoritarian style exhibits high levels of demand but low levels of responsiveness, permissive style exhibits low levels of demand but high in responsiveness and nurturance (Dwairy, 2004). These parenting styles have been proposed to have a significant impact on a child’s

Over the years studies have found patterns in parenting styles and their effects on children. "Parenting isn’t only a collection of skills, rules, and tricks of the trade (Lloyd, Carol. 2012)”, it defines who you become, reflects your culture and represents values important in a family. Parenting style has a long term impact on a child’s development, success and outlook on life. The three styles of parenting are permissive parenting/hands-off parenting , authoritarian parenting, authoritative parenting .Studies revealed that the authoritative parenting style results in the highest success rates for their children in school and in social aspects, thus creating a stable child (Lloyd, Carol.2012).

In this paper, I will examine how parenting style affects an individuals relationship with his or her children. According to Baumrind, there are four main parenting styles, differentiated on levels of support and expectations. This paper focuses on parents with high support and high expectations,who are known as authoritative parents and those who are supportive with low expectations, who are are permissive. These four different styles of parenting lead to very different developmental outcomes for children in social, academic and emotional domains. However, this model does not fully explain parent-child interactions because it neglects to reference the environmental context of the relationship along with any personal differences in temperament of the child. This context introduces complexity such as personality differences, age of child and marital status of the parents. This is an important topic to investigate because of the impact parenting style can have on developmental outcomes for both the immediate child and for future generations.

The styles that Dr. Baumrind recognized were based on two aspects of parenting; parental responsiveness and parental expectation (demandingness). The aspects are determined by the parent’s characteristics on the actions towards the children. Too much or too little of either aspect of parenting can conflict with the child’s learning and behavior. A single selection of the four parenting styles is approached after determining the degree of each of the two aspects. Although there is not a perfect match for any parent, most will tend to push towards a

Talking about multicultural societies, why is parenting style included as part of multiculturalism? Parenting styles was included as part of multiculturalism because a parenting style is like a habit, and many people define a habit as a culture. Parenting styles have been used for more than a hundred years, and every parent has their own style to teach their children based on their general behaviors. Which parenting style do you think is better between the Indonesian parenting style and the American parenting style? It is up to you. You can choose whatever style you want, and which style you think is better for you. Parenting styles in Indonesia and America have similarities; however, they have more differences that we can contrast.

Family life has always been known for being variable in every country. Growing up in different times leads to different consequences and every child has to deal with them. In China, parenting has changed a lot throughout the 20th century, and it will only continue to change. Starting with the 1920s, my grandparents’ generation, the living conditions then were crude at best. Parents took on the “survival of the fittest” approach when it came to their children (Warner, 1925). What this means is that parents only took care of their best child if they could only afford to raise one. As time progressed to the 1940s-1960s, my parents’ generation, life was much happier, as parents swayed away from the initial approach

I was raised in the 50’s. My parents came from Europe after the war in 1948 and began a new life with just the clothes on their back. They had some family here and every holiday, birthday, and just some weekends in between we would get together. By the 70’s in was already gradually starting to shift as high school seniors were heading off all over the country expanding their horizons as they embarked on college life. After college students embarked on new adventures stating their careers away from their families. Although it seemed subtle at the time, now reflecting back it seems loud and clear change has arrived. After high school I never moved back home just like many of my friends and of course this included my cousins. Eventually my aunts and uncles also moved to different states and everyone was all over the place. To this day I miss those wholesome days and wished my child could have had that experience growing up.