Parenting styles

In class we talked about the different parenting styles and ways to address conflict and problems with your own children.
Obviously I do not have children, which means I do not have experience of my own that I could bring to this blog. I do however understand the different types of parenting that parent’s use on their children.

Authoritarian

Authoritative

Permissive

Neglect

These are all forms, most of them are BAD except for neglect. If you are neglecting your child then this is serious and you need to STOP it. If you know neglect is happening to a child this is considered abuse and must be addressed.

Now, let’s get back to the rest of the styles.

The best way for me to explain authoritarian is saying “my way or no way” If you can imagine a parent who does not listen to their child, but tells them constantly how things will be run this is authoritarian. Most people have been raised on this sort of parenting style. Parents usually know what is best for their child and you want what is best for them, naturally you will tell them what to do. This level of parenting is a bit more extreme. If you can think of the mother in Tangled (The evil one, not the queen) she is a fantastic (and extreme) version of Authoritarian.

Mother knows best

The YouTube video is one where you can see the mother talking of how she knows what is best for her daughter. If your parents were authoritarian,  I am not saying they are bad. So don’t be upset at me J

Permissive parenting is when the parent is relaxed. They don’t really care what you do as a child and are there only to be a friend. There really aren’t any set boundaries in the home and mostly can get away with whatever you want. We talked about in class how it seems that even though a parent is permissive sometimes they jump back to the other extreme of Authoritarian. 

Authoritative parenting is also considered “Active” parenting. This is a parenting style that teaches boundaries in a warm way. They also are good at listening to their children but also making it known that they are still the parent and have rules. Our text book states “Parent-child interaction is generally characterized by affection, a certain amount of give-and-take, but relatively clear expectations for the children’s behavior.” This type of parenting in the end develops the strongest ties and relationships with their children. The children trust you and know they have security with their parents.

When it comes to addressing discipline remember to use logical consequences. Before your child doesn’t do something, set them down and decide on logical punishments together. Brother Williams shared how he was going out one night. His parents sat him down and decided on a reasonable curfew. They also said, “We trust you, but just in case, if you do not come home by curfew what should your consequence be?” Together they decided that if he missed curfew he would have to miss going out the next weekend. Well, Brother Williams was a teenager and missed curfew by a half hour. The next week he was grounded and understood it because he had created the punishment as well. He said he never let the reason why he was late to ever happen again. The logical consequence was set so he could see how the punishment correlated with the incident. He also helped his parents decide on how to discipline.

I also liked how we talked about how you should let natural consequences teach children. UNLESS:

1.       Too dangerous 
2.         Too far in the future
3.        When it affects someone else