Parenting Styles Essay

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Eng. 121 October 19, 2013 A Style for Everything, Including Parenting In the late 1960,’s Dr. Diane Baumrind, a developmental psychologist, conducted intensive research on preschoolers, which determined there are four basic parenting styles. Dr. Baumrind defined those styles as the authoritarian style, the authoritative style, the permissive style, the uninvolved style of parenting. Those findings directly relate to how responsive a parent is to the child and how demanding a parent is regarding compliance from the child. The authoritarian parenting style has the strictest rules, highest demands and offers the least emotional support to the child. Permissive parenting has the fewest rules, no demands of the child, but is loving and nurturing to the child. The authoritative parenting style is a balance between those two styles. No parent is perfect and no child is perfect either, the parents and the child throughout their upbringing will make mistakes. All parents want their child to grow into responsible, respectful, productive, well-rounded members of society. Considering parenting is the toughest most important job anyone will ever have, knowledge of which parenting style will help to achieve the desired results is imperative. “Child development experts generally identify the authoritative parenting style as the "best" approach to parenting” (Cherry). Characteristics of parents who practice this parenting style include listening, encouraging independence, as well as being loving and nurturing to their children. Authoritative parents are fair and consistent when it comes to discipline, often allowing the child a chance to express their opinions, ideas and convince the parent to alter the consequence. The authoritative style of parenting allows parents to be flexible, more tolerant, and rational which attributes to the child conforming to the standards

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