Overview of Parenting Styles and Their Effects on Children

Psychologists have always debated the role of parenting styles and their influence on the development of children. Parenting styles can be defined as the psychological construct representing the basic strategies that parent use in raising their child (Matsumoto, Juang 2013 p.69). Parenting styles encompass two major aspects of parting those being parental responsiveness and paternal demanding. Paternal responsiveness is essentially the extent at which a parent fosters individuality, self-regulation, and self-assertion. While paternal demanding is the measure of which the parent makes the child

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.

Children do not come with guidelines or instructions. What they do come with is a crucial set of physical and emotional needs that need to be met. To raise children properly, parents duties are not limited to just food, shelter and protection. Parents are largely responsible for their children’s success in life. Parents are required to teach and educate children. They have to shape knowledge and character into their children to prepare them to face the real world. To be successful with this, parents must provide self esteem needs, teach moral and values and provide discipline that is both effective and appropriate. As the generations have changed, many parenting styles have evolved, as well.

Before having kids, everyone has an idealistic fantasy of what type of parent they are going to be. Will they be a Mary Poppins or a Mommy Dearest? These two women parented in very different but similar ways. Mary Poppins used an authoritative approach to parenting whilst Mommy Dearest used an authoritarian approach. Authoritative and authoritarian parenting styles are the most widely used styles in modern day parenting, with authoritative parenting being the one with the most positive results in terms of child development. They are similar in what parents expect from their children but differ in the way that parents respond to their children’s needs. The effects of the chosen parenting style can be seen in the way that a child feels about themselves and how they interact with the outside world.

The authoritarian parenting style is a style in which the parent has the only say. This parenting style “is based on obedience and the expectation of a child obeying without an explanation required” (McMillian). Authoritarian parents are more likely to discipline their children. Children of authoritarian parents don’t often get

Webster’s dictionary defines parenting as the process of raising and educating a child from birth until adulthood. As someone who parented four biological children, and earned the title of grandma, I can offer a lot of personal insight into the subject of parenting, and my first pearl of wisdom is that parenting is harder than one would think. Children do not come with an operation manual and it usually only takes new parents only a few days before they realize how blissfully delusional they were. Naturally, well meaning parents who understand the implications of their influence on shaping their child into happy, healthy, and successful adults, are naturally humbled with the awesome responsibility, and seek to develop a parenting strategy with positive empirical results.

Authoritarian parents normally do not interact with their children in positive ways and usually install fear into the child. Punishment is usually harsh and given without explanation. Children with authoritarian parents are often anxiety- ridden. Studies have shown that these children have lower self- esteem, show high aggressiveness and typically do less well in school. Permissive parenting consists of high nurture and acceptance, but these parents lack structure and control. These parents look at their children as “free spirits” who need space to learn and grow. Permissive parents are usually inconsistent with discipline. Children with permissive parents normally are impulsive and irresponsible. These children also lack any self- control since none was expected (Sclafani 47).

O’Byrne, Haddock, Poston, and Mid America Heart Institute (2002) investigated whether parenting style was a risk factor of smoking initiation and experimentation among adolescents and whether there was a relationship between parenting style and readiness to quit, and nicotine dependence among smokers. O’Byrne et al. (2002) defined current smokers as those who smoke regularly, experimenters as individuals who have smoked on one or two occasions, but have not smoked in the past month. Initiated smokers were considered both current smokers and individuals who smoked regularly in the past and then quit. Readiness to quit was categorized into four stages: precontemplation, for those who had no intent on quitting, contemplation, for those who may quit but not within the next 6 months, preparation, for those who will quit within the next 6 months and action, for those who will quit next month. Parenting style was measure by the Family of Origin Scale (FOS) which measured family intimacy and autonomy. This scale

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.

In my recent psychology class we studied parenting styles. They are grouped into three different categories; authoritarian, authoritative, and overly permissive. This gave me insight into a couple of different programs I’ve watched on television.Authoritarian parents are parents that set strict rules to keep order and they usually do this without much expression of warmth and affection. “They demand obedience to authority.” (Coon & Mitterer, 2010, p. 91) When the child questions the parent, "Because I said so," is often the response. Parents tend to focus on bad behavior, and not positive behavior, and children are scolded or punished for not after the rules. Authoritative parents help their children learn to be responsible for

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.

Children are the future of the world and need to be nurtured and educated in the best conditions. Thus, parenting is one of the most challenging and admirable responsibilities that people can experience. Parenting plays important roles in the development of children’s characteristics. Some people nurture children depending on their own ways. Others get advice from friends or books. Parenting can be divided into three groups: authoritative, permissive, and democratic parenting.

The authoritative parenting style is the “In between,” of both the authoritarian and permissive parenting styles, and has a “Give and take approach.” Authoritative parents are very involved in their children’s lives: children help around the home and in decision-making processes, and homework is supervised. This approach to parenting raises children who are responsible, well behaved in school, have a high self-esteem, and good problem solving skills along with decision making skills. The authoritative approach to parenting has very positive effects on children’s lives presently, and in the future. (Marsiglia, C.,Walczyk, J., Buboltz, W., Ross, D. 2007).

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.

Parent–child interaction is linked to a number of child outcomes, including levels of self–confidence and self–esteem, the quality of their close relationship and their emotional well–being (Parke and Buriel, 1998). One of the most difficult job of a person will ever have s being a parents. It plays an integral role in the development of a child and can influence child outcomes. Parenting styles have a great impact on a child’s attitude.