Different Parenting Styles

The life of a parent undergoes a dramatic change with the birth of a child and it requires that he or she need to make certain decisions like choosing between bottle or breast, carriage or stroller, continuing work or staying home, employing a nanny or opting for day care.

With children growing up, these decisions continue to change and parents need to decide on the school the child must attend, their meals, allowances, after-school activities and more. All these decisions are dependent on the parenting style and attitude which will influence how the child is taught and learns to socialize.

A Complicated Matter with No Easy Answers

Parenting is a complicated matter with no easy answers available, and many different interactions concerning certain actions and attitudes on the part of parents need to be put together which will affect the development of the child. Such a broad overall pattern of parental actions are termed as a parenting style; not a single act.

Parenting styles may differ and they were best described by Diana Baumrind as well as other researchers in child development. They sought out qualities in children that were most desirable such as innocence, maturity, independence, self-reliance, curiosity, self-control, friendliness as well as achievement orientation and they further quizzed parents to ascertain which elements of parenting nurtured such qualities, and then came up with two factors, which are responsiveness or warmth as well as supportiveness, and demandingness or control of the child's behavior.

The four major parenting styles they found were authoritarian, authoritative, permissive and uninvolved. After further research, they came to conclude that the best adjusted children, especially when it came to social competence, were children of parents that belonged to an authoritative, moderate parenting style. Such parents were able to balance high demands with emotional responsiveness as well as respect for the autonomy of their children.

In contrast, parents that are too strict expect their children to accept parental judgments without argument and do not allow much freedom to the child. Children under such parenting style influences will be reliant on authority and will not be able to show much spontaneity. Authoritative parents, in sharp contrast, allow their children freedom of expression and encourage a sense of independence in their children.

Parenting style can influence the child and it has been found that children of authoritarian mothers were five times more likely to be overweight as compared to authoritative mothers, while children of permissive or uninvolved parents were three times more at risk.