When becoming a parent, one element that many parents don’t think all that much about is how their parenting styles can shape their kid. What many don’t realize, is that how we treat our kids can psychologically impact them, and how they’re raised also plays a major role in the way children react to us. Here, we will explore how different parenting styles affect how we raise our kids, and the long-term impact.
The Types Of Parenting Styles
Currently, all types of parenting styles boil down to four different types, and all types of parents who parent their children fall into one of these. They are as follows:
- Authoritarian parenting
- Authoritative parenting
- Permissive parenting
- Uninvolved parenting
These four types are based on two factors:
- The demand and expectations the parent has regarding getting things from a children
- The responsiveness or even responding to the child’s needs
These types do affect the children in different ways, both in positive and negative manners.
Authoritarian Parenting
Authoritarian parenting is one that’s typically labeled as “cruel” and “heartless”, where they practice tough love, and they follow the mantra of having children be seen and not heard. Essentially the parent is the one that’s in charge, and the child obeys. This one typically involves having strict rules, a refusal to discuss the issues, using the word no frequently, and punishments for bad behaviors.
The problem with this type of parenting is there is no freedom, and what happens to children as adults, is that they need to learn how to discipline and have control, which all too often they end up lacking. If a child only knows how to obey rules and never thinks for themselves, as adults they will be unable to look at nuances, and in essence deal with ambiguity. Children in this situation tend to lack self-esteem.
Authoritative Parenting
You also have authoritative parenting, which is often mistaken for authoritarian, but not as bad. It is the most effective type of parenting style according to psychologists, which combines a strong hand in a velvet glove, where they will perform strong hand direction and expectation, but also works to empower the kid, making them responsible for what they do. This is a typical parenting style of most middle-class Americans.
Authoritative parenting is mostly based on responsiveness and how demanding they are. It’s very engaged compared to the other types. It involves reasoning, establishing expectations, communicating a lot, a set boundary and limit, and responding to the emotional needs of the child. The goal of this is to make then independent, and self-reliant. The parents are more like coaches, where they prod the child to have them make the right decisions and take responsibility within limits. They use discipline, but not punishment. They try to engage with the child, trying to figure out why the bad behavior is happening, and trying to foster a discussion with a child. It can help with bringing forth a greater sense of identity, and self-confidence in situations that are new.
Permissive Parenting
Then there is permissive parenting. These are the parents that are easygoing, who raise their children in a free-range manner or let them do whatever they want. It’s when the focus is love and very little levels of discipline, and there are very few rules. It also may be avoiding the rule enforcement as well. Typically, it’s high on responsiveness, and low on demanding. The parents tend to be warm and accepting, rarely punish their kids, set very few limits, and don’t exert a ton of control.
This is mostly the idea of parents being friends rather than the parent or boss of the kid, and they focus on being liked rather than raising the kid, so there are very little disapproval and discipline. The problem with it is that children are then given the free pass to continue doing bad things, and the parents make the excuse of “oh it isn’t all that bad, so they don’t need punishment,” and they give off this idea that a child is only a child once, so they don’t want to restrict playtime and activities. However, they’re never given limits to this. Not growing up with rules makes it harder for them, since they don’t accept the limitations of what they do as they should.
Uninvolved Parenting
Uninvolved parenting and permissive parenting can often be confused due to their stand-back approach and lack of rules. The difference here is that while permissive parents try to be their child’s friend, uninvolved parents don’t try to my their child’s anything. They essentially remove themselves from their children’s lives. This forces the children to have to grow up as their own parent and sometimes the parent to younger siblings as well.
These parents are often more involved in their own work and themselves than their children. Often times, parents who end up using this style were raised in this style of parenting as well. People tend to parent in a similar way to how their parents raised them. Children raised in this way struggle with self-esteem issues, cognitive issues, and behavioral problems.
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