Parenting Styles

It's scary to think that parents can influence the way that their children will be just by the way they parent them. It puts a pretty heavy burden on the parents -- if they mess up, it can negatively affect their children.

I found an informative article that I'm basing my blog post off of (it's very similar to what is in our packet, just written out differently). http://www.aboutourkids.org/articles/parenting_styleschildren039s_temperaments_match

There are 2 important parts of parenting: responsiveness and demandingness. These things mix to make four different parenting styles:

Authoritarian is a very strict parenting style where the parents are very controlling. They dictate how their child should behave. They're demanding and directive, they expect to be obeyed, they don't encourage give-and-take, and they discourage discussion. They are not so sensitive and don't expect their children to disagree with them. 

Authoritative is a moderate parenting style where parents set limits, but rely on natural consequences to help children learn from their mistakes. They explain why rules must be followed and reason with children. They consider the children's perspective even if they don't agree. They set high standards, encourage the children to be independent, and they're firm with kindness, warmth, and love. 

Permissive is an indulgent parenting style where parents are accepting and warm and exert little control. They don't set limits and they allow children to set their own rules, activities, and schedules. They don't make demands. 

Uninvolved is a parenting style that demands and responds very little. 

Each of these parenting styles has an impact on the children. The best adjusted, most social competent, and most independent children have parents that use authoritative parenting style. Children with strict, authoritarian, parents will have trouble being spontaneous and will rely on people of authority. Children of permissive parents have trouble controlling their impulses and may have trouble accepting responsibility. 

Children also affect the parenting styles though. There are three temperaments of children: 

easy children who are calm, happy, and agreeable. They eat and sleep normally. They are interested in new experiences.

Difficult children are fussy, have irregular sleeping and eating habits, don't adapt easily, don't like new situations, easily upset, and intense in their reactions.

Slow to warm up children are relatively inactive, reflective, tend to withdraw or react negatively to novelty, but their reactions become more positive with experience. 

I think it's pretty cool that the two (children and parents) interact with one another and it will influence a child's development. It's not just the parents and it's not just the children -- it's a mixture of many different things.