Parenting Styles – What Are They?

There are two primary parenting styles which exist in society – authoritarian and authoritative. An authoritarian parenting style tends to dictate the actions of the parent takes in raising the children, and is very demanding and controlling. An authoritarian parenting style tends to mean that the children are not given any say in the day to day activities or decisions, and are largely shielded from many things they may see as unpleasant. Children raised under this style are usually difficult, demanding and insecure adults. An authoritarian parenting style is often cited as a cause for the poor performance of school children, as well as for the success of street criminals.

The other main type of parenting styles is the authoritative parenting style. This is generally considered to be the proper way to parent, and involves taking into account many positive characteristics of a parent. Parents who practice this style tend to take a very involved approach to child development, and are highly protective of their children. A mother who has been raised in this way can become very nurturing and involved in the early childhood development of her child, but will become overly demanding and overbearing at times. However, children who have been brought up in this manner tend to perform better socially and in many ways lead more satisfying lives.

Both these parenting styles are perfectly acceptable, and it really depends on how you would want to parent. If by participating in a more active role in your child’s life, this would help to enhance your parenting skills, then by all means do it. An example of this would be a working parent who spends a lot of time with their kids, helping with homework, etc. Another example would be a stay at home mom, where the dad is a stay at home dad. Parenting styles can even be mixed and matched, especially if one parent is much more hands on than the other. It all depends on what works for each family.

The parenting styles that I am going to mention are all considered “free-range” parenting styles. A free-range parenting style, simply put, is a style in which children are allowed to make some of their decisions. Typically, this would mean that the parents are involved in their children’s decisions, but parents are not dictating or heavily influencing their children. Some characteristics include; being very protective of their children, and being very involved attuned to their children’s lives.

All three of the parenting styles that I mentioned are considered to be somewhat “authoritarian”. An authoritarian parent is the opposite of a free-range parenting style. Although they encourage their kids to make the decision, they do not let their kids have as much input as they would like.

The last two parenting styles that I mentioned are also considered to be “coercive”. Coercive parenting styles involve a lot of yelling and screaming from both parents. The last one I will mention is the most like the self-esteem-centered parenting style. This is the parenting style where the parents encourage their kids to set their own goals and meet those goals. However, they do not set unrealistic goals for their kids and do not set goals that are far out of reach. If your parents believe that their kids are not able to achieve the goals that they have set for them, they may do everything possible to make sure that they achieve those goals.