Parenting styles can affect kids’ self-esteem, social skills, performance in school, and overall well-being. Researchers divide parenting styles into four categories: authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, and uninvolved. The best approach may depend on the child’s needs.
The authoritative style is considered optimal. It is marked by a balance between high warmth, support, and positive reinforcement and high structure and expectations. These parents put effort into creating and maintaining positive relationships with their kids by validating feelings and praising while also disciplining. They see mistakes as learning experiences. Authoritative parents set clear rules and have open communication with their kids, allowing their kids to develop the confidence to make responsible choices, have social skills, understand the reasons for rules, do well in school, self-regulate and express their emotions, and make decisions on their own. Sub-types of authoritative parenting include free-range, which includes less supervision in public like walking to school and playing outside to promote independence, and attachment, which includes hands-on nurturing such as physical closeness and bed sharing. Children of these parents often have better language skills.
The authoritarian style is a dictatorship style characterized by strict rules, with a focus on obedience and discipline that disregard the child’s feelings. Authoritarian parents often say “because I said so” when explaining rules. Because of authoritarian parents’ lack of warmth and communication, their kids often struggle with low self-esteem from feeling unheard, anxiety, depression, decision-making, social skills, resentfulness, hostility, poor judge of character, and substance use. A sub-type of authoritarian parenting includes helicopter, which includes parents intervening in and controlling many aspects of a child’s life to reduce their own feelings of fear and anxiety.
The permissive style is a chaotic style that involves little discipline, even if rules exist. Permissive parents act more like friends than parents and cater to their kids’ wants. Because of permissive parents’ lack of authority and enforced rules, their kids often lack personal responsibility and independence, are impulsive and entitled, have difficulty with academics, socializing, and decision-making, and suffer from anxiety and depression. A sub-type of permissive parenting includes snowplow, which includes dropping everything to bulldoze anything in their child’s way so their child doesn’t struggle. The downside is these children develop anxiety about failing.
The uninvolved or neglectful style is an ignoring style marked by not asking the child about school, not knowing where the child is, not spending much time with them, and not setting rules. Children of neglectful parents raise themselves and don’t get basic needs met sometimes due to parents’ own mental health struggles. Because of neglectful parents’ lack of involvement, their kids often act out with rebelliousness, delinquency, and substance use. They may experience depression, low empathy, and low self-esteem and mistrust others, resulting in low social skills and low school performance.
Deb Falzoi
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