Various parenting styles

Child Psychology classifies parenting styles into four major categories, namely, Authoritative, Authoritarian, Permissive and Uninvolved child rearing style.

Authoritative parents are warm, attentive and sensitive to their child’s needs, make reasonable demands in behavioural controls, and grant age appropriate autonomy to their children, in accordance to their readiness.

Authoritarian parents are comparatively cold and rejecting and often apply the techniques of force or punishments for controlling their child’s behaviour. This results in parents making all the decisions regarding their child.

Permissive parents are warm and accepting but are either overindulged or not attentive in their child’s life which is reflected in their lax behavioural control over their children. Such parents often tend to grant autonomy of decision making to their children; prior to their potential capability.

Uninvolved parents are emotionally detached and appear to be withdrawn from their children’s life and therefore, are indifferent to their child’s behaviour.

Impact of parenting styles on children

What parenting style a parent adopts significantly affects a child’s present and future, being the primary, most essential and influential source of socialisation. A child reared by an authoritative parent grows up to be an adolescent with high esteem and incorporated with social and moral maturity. Authoritarian child rearing style renders adolescents to be less well-adjusted as compared to those reared with authoritative parenting. Such children tend to deal with aggressive behaviour in daily life. Permissive and uninvolved parenting often result in display of poor academic performances by children. Such children also lack healthy communication skills and are characterised by anti-social behaviour. Besides these, unhealthy mental conditions like anxiety, anger and depression might be exhibited by the children of uninvolved parents.

Possibly, the best parenting style?!

Child psychologists believe the Authoritarian parenting style to be the most effective and successful because children of these parents turn out to have cooperative dispositions. The reasonable control exhibited by parents over behaviour and autonomy help the child to regulate their nature within the positive supporting environment.

Parents should therefore take steps towards a positive parenting style by approaching authoritative child-rearing capability. Establishment of healthy communication, being patient while dealing with their children, being available and involved with their child’s whereabouts and interested in the stories they share and providing warm and loving responses to the children are certain tips that will help a parent climb the ladder to positive parenting and lead to an enhanced parent-child bond.

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