Parenting Styles: Are You Parenting Right?
Parenting Styles: Are You Parenting Right?
By: Kylie Johnson
When it comes to parenting there is always one commonly asked question, “Am I parenting right?” Parenting does not come with a manual. Sure, there are books on how to parent but those are based on other parent’s parenting styles and their experiences with their children. There is no such thing as perfect parenting, every child is different, and every parent will parent their child as they see the best fit. Despite this, the worry from many parents still is if they are parenting right. What we do know is that the way you parent directly plays part in shaping your child. According to Brain (2019), in the 1960s, Baumrind noticed that preschoolers exhibited distinctly different types of behavior. Each type of behavior was highly correlated to a specific kind of parenting. Baumrind’s theory is that there is a close relationship between parenting styles and children’s behavior, which lead to different outcomes in the children’s lives. These parenting styles can be broken down into four parenting styles: authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, and neglectful.
The first parenting style is the authoritative style. The authoritative style is correlated with high demandingness from the parent and high responsiveness towards the child (Brain, 2019). High demandingness means that the parent has a high demand for what to expect from their child, and the parent has high responsiveness to the child’s emotional needs. The authoritative parenting style includes being warm and responsive, having clear rules, high expectations, being supportive, and value independence (Brain, 2019). The associated outcome from the authoritative parenting style that will be seen in a child includes having higher academic performance, more self-esteem, better social skills, less mental illness – less depression, anxiety, suicide attempts, delinquency, and alcohol and drug use (Brain, 2019).
The second parenting style is the authoritarian style. The authoritarian style is correlated with high demandingness from the parent and low responsiveness toward the child (Brain, 2019). High demandingness means that the parent has a high demand for what to expect from their child, and the parent has low responsiveness to the child ‘s thoguhts and emotions regardless of if they life up to those expectations. The authoritarian parenting style from parents includes being unresponsive, having strict rules, high expectations, and expecting blind obedience (Brain, 2019). The associated outcome from the authoritarian parenting style that will be seen in a child includes lower academic performance, having less self-esteem, poorer social skills, being more prone to mental illnesses, drug/alcohol abuse, and delinquency (Brain, 2019).
The third parenting style is the permissive style. The permissive style is correlated with low demandingness from the parent and high responsiveness toward the child (Brai