Diana Baumrind distinguished three main parenting styles (authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive) based on the degree af parental responsiveness and parental demandingness provided to the child. Later, Maccoby and Martin (1983) added the neglectful parenting style to Baumrind's three parenting style model. Parenting style could be understood as "a context that moderates the influences of specific parenting practices on the child" (Daring & Steinberg, 1993, p.487)
The responsiveness of a parent depends on the extent to which a parent responds to the needs of their child, mostly considered as warmth or supportiveness. The demandingness of a parent depends on the degree of what a parent expects such as responsiblity and appropriativeness of a child, basically behavioral control.
The authoritative parenting styles consists of high responsiveness and high demandingness. This style is widely accepted as the preferred parenting because it develops the language, social, cognitive, and moral development of the child. The authoritative parent sets high standards and provides their child with lots of support in order for their child to achieve their set standards. However, this nuturing parent shows firm control when necessary and does not burden the child with unnecessary restraints. Authoritative children are encouraged to be verbal and ask questions, likely questioning rules and expressing their opinions.
The authoritatian parenting style consists of low responsiveness and high demandingness. This parenting style is the opposite of the authoritative style. Authoritatian parents sets high standards for the child's achivement, but they do not provide the adequate amount of support for them to do so. This kind of parent does not encourage verbal reasoning with the child and does not favor freedom. Instead, they expect the accept what they say without reasoning and for a child to stay in a child's place. Due to this, authoritatian households are less likely to reach the goals of cognitive and moral development leaving the child to withdraw, Although these parents do not provide a loving and supportive environment these children still feel the love and know their parents mean no harm.
The permissive parenting style consists of high responsiveness and low demandingness. This type of style is referred to as favorable. Permissive parents are highly involved, but are not as demanding, more like a friend of the child leaving the child to do as they please. Children from these households hold their head up high in all situations, but they fail to follow rules like an authoritative and authoritatian child would. These children also lack self control and have a hard time learning new things. They may also suffer from normlessness due to their parents fail to providing them with a sense of direction in life, leaving them more prone to misconduct.
The neglectful parenting style consists of low responsiveness and low demandingness. This is the "uninvolved" (Maccoby and Martin, 1983) parenting style, this parent does not provide any sense of control over their child. Basically meaning, this parent does not care what their child does. These type of children will act out in all situations because they beg for attention outside of the home. As opposed to the authoritative parenting style, neglectful parenting has been linked to lower levels of socio-emotional competence and higher levels of psychological and behavioral dysfunction (Lamborn et al., 1991).
As for myself, I was raised in a single parent housing situation. My mother has always been the authoritative parent with high responsiveness and high demandingness. Very seldom did my actions result in consequences such as punishment, but when they did I was able to question and recieve answers on what was taking place. My mother was never the "do what I say or else" type of parent and neither was my father. As for my father, he was the permissive type, nothing really matters to him. I mean certain things do but he is more of a friend, the parent you call when you need laughter. However, it was important to make him proud and give him something to show off, that was the plus of being his only child.
Being familiar with the four main types of parenting styles serves a greater purpose for me. As a educator I can apply these parenting styles to my teaching styles and choose consequences for my students. Most importantly, my upbringing would play a greater role within my teaching style. I would begin my teaching style as authoritarian so that I can set my standard of conduct and eventually change my style to authoritative so that my students will not think that I am just easy to push over. I would just much rather choose the type of teaching style that promotes cognitive, social and moral development.
