Parenting Styles and How They Affect Your Children

What Are the Parenting Styles and How Do They Affect Your Child?

How a parent raises their child can affect the child later on in life. There are four parenting styles: authoritarian, authoritative, permissive, and neglectful (uninvolved). Each of these parenting styles can affect a child in some way. Some parenting styles have more negative outcomes than others. Some have both positive and negative outcomes.

The authoritarian parenting style is a style in which the parent has the only say. This parenting style “is based on obedience and the expectation of a child obeying without an explanation required” (McMillian). Authoritarian parents are more likely to discipline their children. Children of authoritarian parents don’t often get into trouble, however, if a child does something wrong, they are less likely to tell their parents about it. This is because they have been taught to fear the consequences. In some populations, children from authoritarian families suffer from emotional problems. It is believed that “children of authoritarian parents develop self-guilt and self-hatred that could lead to low self-esteem” (Truesdale). Also, a survey of middle-aged Americans found that people who grew up in such parenting styles often reported depressive symptoms and poor psychological adjustment.

The authoritative parenting style, like the authoritarian style, focuses on structure and rules. This is also known as the “democratic parenting style” because parents are willing to discuss the rules that they set. When the parent’s expectations are not met, their first plan or action is to talk about it, verses disciplining their children. The whole concept of authoritative parenting revolves around guidance. The child is still entitled ...

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...s can be passed down throughout generations.

Works Cited

McMillian, Tatiana. “Four Parenting Styles and How They Affect Your Children.” Parenting.

Ezine Articles. Web. http://ezinearticles.com/?4-Parenting-Styles-and-How-They-Affect-

Your-Children&id=4758.

Phillips, DR. Debora and Fred Bernstein. How to Give Your Child a Great Self Image. New

York: Random House, Inc, 1989. Print.

Sclafani, Joseph. The Educational Parent: Recent Trends in Raising Children. Westport,

Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 2004. Print.

Truesdale, Carnigee. “Parenting Styles and the Effect They Have On Children.” Maternal

Substance Abuse and Child Development. Emory University State of Medicine. Web.

http://www.psychiatry.emory.edu/PROGRAMS/GADrug/effect_on_children.htm.

Boyd, Denise and Helen Bee. Lifespan: Development. Boston: Pearson, 2006. Print. (202-204)