Parenting styles

Four main parenting stylesor parenting strategies have been identified in early child development research: authoritative, authoritarian and permissive and neglectful. .

Baumind's parenting styles
Diane Baumind identified three parenting styles:


 * The permissive parent attempts to behave in a nonpunitive, acceptant and affirmative manner towards the child. There are few demands for household responsibility and orderly behavior and an open dialogue about any rules and behaviors is maintained. It is a child-centered approach characterized by a warm, positive affect. Permissive parenting is characterized as having few behavioral expectations for the child, and is a child-centered approach characterized by warm affect.


 * The authoritarian parent attempts to control, and evaluate the behavior and attitudes of the child in accordance with a set standard of conduct. Authoritarian parenting is characterized by high expectations of compliance to parental rules and directions, the use of more coercive techniques to gain compliance, little parent-child dialogue.


 * The authoritative parent attempts to direct the child's activities but in a rational, issue-oriented manner. Neglectful parenting is similar to permissive parenting but is a parent centered approach characterized by cold affect.

Research into the child behavior outcomes associated with each type of parenting has traditionally shown a strong benefit to authoritative parenting. These children have been shown to have more self-discipline, emotional self-control, more friends and better school performance.

However, recent research has identified a number of caveats.
 * First, authoritarian parenting may be more effective in certain contexts and in social groups other than those studied in early research.
 * Second, little research has examined the genetic influences that may underlie the findings. For instance, harsh parenting may produce harsher children through the mechanism of genetic transmission of these traits.  Behavior genetics research is currently examining the influence of genes as they pertain to parenting styles.
 * The final and most important criticism of the parenting styles research is that parenting has been shown to be part of a bi-directional relationship between parent and child. Thus, characterizing a parenting style as arising from the parent leaves out the essential influence of the child on the parent-child dyad.

Papers

 * Baumrind, D. (1966). Effects of Authoritative Parental Control on Child Behavior, Child Development, 37(4), 887-907.
 * Baumrind, D. (1967). Child care practices anteceding three patterns of preschool behavior. Genetic Psychology Monographs, 75(1), 43-88.
 * Baumrind,D. (1978). Parental disciplinary patterns and social competence in children. Youth and Society,9,238-276
 * Gruesec, I. E. ( 1997 ). A History of Research on Parenting Strategies and Children's internalization of Values, In Parenting and ChiIdren 's Iinternaliation of Values. edited by Grusecc, S. E., & Kucsyaski, L., John Wiley & Sons Inc.