PARENTING STYLES

Parenting Styles by Baumrind



Parenting Styles by Baumrind

Introduction

For several decades, developmental psychologists have explored the issue of how to characterize “good” or adaptive parenting, hoping to identify those parenting behaviors that promote healthy child development. Developmental researchers have investigated distinct parenting styles, or general patterns of caregiving, that have been linked either positively or negatively with children's overall functioning. These different styles of parenting were first explored in laboratory and naturalistic observations of parent-child interactions during the 1960s. Since that time, clinical researchers have homed in on specific parenting practices reflective of these broad parenting styles in an effort to learn how and why maladaptive parenting might lead to particular childhood disorders. In recent years, research into effective parenting has focused largely on two global constructs that appear to positively influence child development: responsiveness and demandingness. This paper discusses parenting styles by Baumrind in a concise and comprehensive way.

Parenting Styles by Baumrind

Authoritarian style is one of the three original parenting styles Diana Baumrind recognized. In describing parenting styles, Baumrind identified two dimensions of parenting. The first relates to how demanding parents are. This element speaks to parents' levels of strictness or supervision. The other dimension Baumrind acknowledged relates to how responsive parents are (Kochanksa, Aksan and Nichols, 2003). In other words, highly responsive parents are ones who are accepting of and warm toward their children.

Parents who are strict and demanding yet rarely accepting and responsive are categorized as having an authoritarian parenting style. These parents often lack flexibility and offer less give-and-take or compromising with their children. On the opposite end of the spectrum is permissive parenting style (Kochanksa, Aksan and Nichols, 2003), which incorporates a highly accepting technique but also lacks supervision. Authoritarian and permissive parenting styles generally are less desirable than authoritative parenting style, which utilizes a warm but firm technique in parent-child relationships. Although Baumrind initially described only three parenting styles, some literature describes a fourth commonly recognized style labeled neglectful. Neglectful parents are those who provide neither supervision nor acceptance.

Authoritarian parents tend to expect and value obedience. They have clear and rigid rules designed to limit their children's freedom. They do not tolerate defiance, and they may employ strict punishment for rule breaking. Instead of teaching their children to make logical decisions, they teach their children to do what they say. In a sense, they want their children to be blank slates (Lorber, O'Leary and Kendziora, ...