Parenting style plays a pivotal part in a child’s life. The impact of parenting techniques and style affects the child development. According to psychologists, it is difficult to specify the actions of parents with the behavior of the children. There are four different dimensions of parenting; disciplinary strategies, warmth and nurture, communication styles, maturity expectations and control. In order to teach and parent your child in the best way, you must first learn and educate yourself about the consequences to make wise decisions for your kids. All parents are not the same, they may differ according to their culture, tradition, lifestyle and values which in turn makes them different in parenting. The parenting style will also change as per time, situation and generation. The following is a list of seven most common parenting styles among today’s parents.
1. Instinctive parenting
This type of parenting comes from within which can be considered more like an inherited pattern of behavior. It is a kind of parenting more from your intuition rather than any other learned method. Instinctive parenting is also called as old school method of parenting. It is your own style of personal parenting which is molded in you since your childhood. It is most likely to parent your child the way you were parented in your childhood by your parents or guardian.
2. Attachment parenting
The motive in this type of parenting is to create a strong emotional bond between the parent and the child. The people adopting attachment parenting are those who are always by their child’s side. They are readily available at all times whenever their child needs them emotionally. Children who are brought up by this type of parenting are much secure in nature and grows to be a sensitive and a peaceful human being. People supporting attachment parenting believes in natural childbirth, homeschooling or even anti-vaccination cause.
3. Helicopter parenting
Helicopter parenting is the type of parenting where the parents usually interfere in almost every aspect of their children’s lives. They linger around their children like a helicopter and keep a check on them all the time. This type of parenting can be considered as normal for the parents to ensure their child’s safety, specially if the children are very young and immature. But in case of grown-up children, helicopter parenting can also be harmful as it includes too much smothering in the children’s lives. Excessive of this style of parenting can make the children dependent on their parents even after they move into colleges or into professional life.
4. Authoritative parenting
Authoritative parenting is a classic way of parenting your children as this type of parenting follows certain rules, conditions and guidelines. The parents are in authority in this type of parenting where they establish definite rules to be followed by their children but in a much democratic style. Rather than setting restrictions, the parents are liberal and responsible in the style of authoritative parenting.
5. Authoritarian parenting
In authoritarian parenting, the parents are rigid in nature and they expect their children to follow each of their established rules and regulations. The parents establish strict rules and failure to follow them would lead to punishment. Authoritarian parents are not much communicative and they fail to explain the strictness behind the rules. The parents does not response to their children and are always high in demands.
6. Permissive parenting
The parents following the type of permissive parenting are also known as indulgent or non traditional parents. This type of parents are lenient and does not have high expectations of maturity. Permissive parents are mostly communicative with their children and treats them more like a friend than a parent. They try to avoid confrontations and rarely tries to discipline their children.
7. Uninvolved parenting
The parents of this type are generally not involved in their children’s lives. These parents just carry out their responsibility of fulfilling the basic needs of their children. They are the people who have lower responsiveness towards their child, have low demands and are less communicative. These parents can be so uninvolved in their children’s life that they could sometimes fail to fulfill their general needs also.
The possible reasons of different styles of parenting is due to the difference in culture, religion, educational background, economic status, family size, etc. Parenting style is to develop an independent, content and a capable children as the impact of an individual parenting style is different. The authoritative parenting style is considered to be the best among all the other parenting styles.
