Parenting Style- Are you following the best method?

Saniya Bedi
Aug 23, 2017 · 5 min read
Image Source- Google

You may have opened this tab to re-check if your parenting style is the best. Well! who are we to judge! There are various ways of parenting; have a look and decide what would you like to follow!

Parenting style refers to certain standard strategies employed by parents for raising their children. Baurin (1966) suggested that there are two main dimensions of parenting: parental responsiveness and parental demand.

Four types of parenting styles were introduced by Diana Baumrind (1966) and updated by Elenor Maccoby (1983) are as follows:

• Authoritative: this is a democratic form of parenting. Here, parents are involved, forgiving and encouraging. The child’s actions are followed by either punishment or reward-depending upon the degree of adherence to rules. They combine warmth and rationale.

Diana Baumrind (1991), through her research proposed that highly demanding and responsive authoritative parents were successful in protecting their adolescents from problems like drug use and in generating competence.

• Authoritarian: considered as a strict parenting style. This involves high expectations and lack of communication between the child and the parents. This style does not involve the inductive approach to discipline and therefore does not provide a rationale to explain, but is prone to punishments.

• Permissive: parents take on the role of a friend and allows the child to make their own decisions.

• Uninvolved: parents seem detached from the child. They are successful in providing the basic needs of a child but have little interaction.

A cross cultural study on the relationship of parenting styles and academic achievement by Lau and Lam (1988) indicated that Australian parents were lower than both Chinese and American parents in academic authoritarianism. Chinese parents were higher in general authoritarianism, but lower in academic and general authoritativeness.

Baumrind (1966) proposed that the authoritative style of parenting has the most positive effect on the child. This is because the child is given a balanced environment which consists of rules as well as a supporting and encouraging environment. In contrast, authoritarian parents may help in the development of skills like self regulation and obedience but may not develop self expression. The lack of a rule focused framework in indulgent parenting style may allow self expression but not provide a chance to build emotional regulation. The lack of warmth and care in uninvolved parenting may be extremely detrimental to the overall development of the child.

Mc Golerick (2011) proposed Five Parenting Styles. These were authoritative, permissive, instinctive, helicopter and attachment.

Instinctive parenting is described as a parenting style wherein one is likely to parent the child as they were parented. This involves going with one’s intuition or gut.

Attachment parenting focuses on building strong connection with children. This involves being sensitive to the child’s needs and wants and being emotionally available always. Such parents avoid corporal punishment or a family bed.

Helicopter parenting involves constant interaction and often interference with the children’s lives. This over involvement may backfire in terms of dependency on the parents by the children.

Research by Emmaneul, Akinyemi & Nimotalai found that there exists a significant relationship between lack of parental affection and parenting skills and delinquency among people of the Bagagry area of Lagos state.

The word ‘discipline’ has been derived from the Latin word, disciplina which means instruction or tuition. While browsing through the meaning of discipline, I found two definitions which speak about training but while one proposes training, other suggests punishment as a medium.

In my opinion, it refers to a way of imparting knowledge. It entails not only changing the undesirable behavior but also motivating the child to imbibe positive behavior and values. A way to make a child understand what is acceptable and what is not; a powerful tool for socialization.

Canadian Paediatric Society (2004) suggested three types of discipline styles. These are:

• Time out: This style works best with primary school going children. It refers to keeping the child away from receiving attention that may reinforce mis-behavior.

• Reasoning or away from the moment discussions: this refers to bringing about a change in the undesirable behaviour, either in advance or away from actual misbehaviour.

• Disciplinary Spanking: a number of researches have indicated that any form or physical punishment is positively correlated with negative child outcomes.

Spencer D. Li (2011) suggested that religious context of parenting had a negative correlation with alcohol use and also proved as a successful agent in decreasing inter parental conflict.

In my opinion, parenting styles and types of discipline patterns do not exist in vacuum. The cultural context in which the family is embedded, child’s temperament and developmental age are essential in determining the success of each. Researchers have indicated different success rates between the parenting styles and type of discipline and socialization.

Tiller, Garrison & Block (2000) indicated that apart from parenting styles, socio economic and demographic characteristics are essential in determining children’s cognitive ability.

Taking an example of a joint family scenario in India, we often see different parenting styles prevalent. For example, the parents may be liberal about the child’s religious inclinations. However, the grand parents may want to instil their particular religious values. This may be conflicting for the child in the process of socialization. Similarly, if the primary care giver is working and the child is left in a creche, much before the child goes to school, he/ she is introduced to other societal views and standards.

Closing Word:

While it is popularly accepted that authoritative parenting style is the best, according to me, there is no one parenting style that would lead to 100% success in the process of socialization. Every parent needs to tailor their style in accordance to their child’s needs, temperament, together with considering the prevalent cultural norms. A child’s school life includes fifteen years of schooling. This means Interaction with different teachers, peer, elders, popular culture etc. In my opinion, the parenting style and the severity of discipline cannot remain static too. It needs to be reinvented depending upon the child’s developmental stage, his/her personality and several other factors.

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I am a counselling psychologist. Here on medium to share my experiences and views on mental health! Happy Reading!

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