Once you have a baby, you start interacting with other families and quickly learn one thing—every parent and their kid is unique, and there is no one-size-fits-all approach to raising children.
Although no two families are exactly alike, experts have identified some common parenting styles. These parenting approaches are generally based on factors like the support parents provide their kids, and the amount of control they try to exert over them. In general, there are five types of parenting styles that have their set of pros and cons and can be identified via distinct characteristics. According to experts, your parenting style can affect your child in many ways, including their self-esteem, behaviour, and physical health.
So what’s your parenting style and how does it affect your kid? We have for you an overview plus cues on which category you might fall into.
5 Types Of Parenting Styles
The four main types of parenting styles that have been identified include authoritarian, authoritative, permissive, attachment, and uninvolved. Learn more about these parenting styles in the next section, and how and when to adapt your approach, if needed.
Authoritarian Parenting
What Is The Authoritarian Style Of Parenting?
This is a strict parenting approach, where parents may set firm rules and high expectations, without offering their kids much support, or even bothering to ask for their input. The goal of an authoritarian parent is usually obedience and may include strict punishment if rules aren’t followed.
How Does It Affect Your Kids?
The authoritarian parenting style helps teach your kids to respect and follow rules obediently. Plus, since this parenting style is a bit strict, children tend to think about their actions before doing anything, thereby avoiding impulsive choices. Kids’ authoritarian parents also excel academically and are disciplined, self-motivated, and independent.
However, this parenting style can also add a lot of pressure on children, as a result of rigid rules, and the pressure to be perfect. Strict punishments can also make your child prone to internalising behaviours like feeling withdrawn, afraid, or lonely.
Authoritative Parenting
What Is The Authoritative Style Of Parenting?
Authoritative parents aim to strike a balance between being firm and rigid, but also supportive and warm. Instead of forcing their children to follow rules, authoritative parents are open to discussion as a family. But they are still super-clear about who is in charge and might hold their kids accountable if they don’t do what is expected of them. Additionally, authoritative parents usually use discipline in the form of guiding and coaching their children and teaching them about the natural and logical consequences of their actions.
How Does It Affect Your Kids?
Authoritative parenting is widely considered the healthiest approach to raising children. This is because authoritative parenting is mostly focused on positive strategies and ensures that the child’s opinions are equally heard and considered. Kids raised by authoritative parents are usually cheerful, friendly, goal-oriented, and self-reliant.
Attachment Parenting
What Is The Attachment Style Of Parenting?
This parenting style stems from the attachment theory, which states that infants need to be nurtured and stay physically close to their primary caregivers for the first few years of their life. In fact, attachment parenting is often considered a subset of authoritative parenting, but with an additional emphasis on physical touch and affection.
How Does It Affect Your Kids?
Attachment parenting can help your child better cope during moments of adversity and stress. But kids raised by attachment parents may have difficulty in independently transitioning to scenarios where their parents aren’t present. For instance, they may have trouble fitting in with the other students at preschool as they still heavily rely on their parents for emotional reassurance.
Permissive Parenting
What Is The Permissive Style Of Parenting?
Permissive parents tend to be nurturing and warm, but tend to be inconsistent in setting rules or disciplining their little ones. They usually act as a friend more than a role model, so their kids tend to have a lot of freedom and aren’t always monitored closely. Children raised by permissive parents aren’t well-organised or structured and do not have many responsibilities.
How Does It Affect Your Kids?
Kids of permissive parents tend to be free-thinkers who aren’t afraid to speak their minds. They are also more creative than their peers. But this parenting style comes with a set of downsides. As the child is raised in a household without limits and proper rules, they barely understand the importance of boundaries and have difficulty settling into tough environments.
Uninvolved Parenting
What Is The Uninvolved Style Of Parenting?
Uninvolved parents tend to have little knowledge about what their kids are doing. They barely set any rules in the household and are mostly unable to meet their kids’ physical or emotional needs. They also rarely provide any supervision to their children and can be unintentionally neglectful. In some cases, parents believe that their child will do better without their oversight and therefore, stop involving themselves in fulfilling their kid’s needs.
How Does It Affect Your Kids?
Almost every expert agrees that uninvolved parenting can cause serious problems in your child’s life. It may lower your child’s self-esteem, and they might have a hard time building healthy relationships or trusting others. Children with uninvolved parents may also perform poorly at school and exhibit frequent behavioural problems like sadness, frustration, and stress.
Every family is different, and so is their parenting style. Not all parents will fit into just one style and might have to combine two or three of these approaches above to raise their child. What matters here is figuring out what works best for your child, and what values you want to instil in them. Just focus on maintaining a positive relationship with your child, and establishing authority in a healthy manner, because that’s the only way you can keep your child happy and healthy.
Also read:
How to build trust with your child: Learn how to build a trustful relationship with your child with these easy and effective strategies.
How warning signs protect your child’s mental health: Watch out for these warning signs to monitor your child’s state of mind, and tips to improve their mental health.
Featured image: Freepik.com
