Researchers have identified four types of parenting. They are identified as authoritarian, authoritative, permissive, and uninvolved. They each have their different traits, and they effect the children who are raised by the different styles of parenting, both positively and negatively. Let’s take a look at how parents of these types of parenting act and what effect they have on their children.

Authoritarian

Authoritarian parents often are stringent to the rules that they enforce upon their children. They are less flexible and often don’t take their children’s feelings or opinions into consideration. The reason behind the rules aren’t properly explained because the parent believes that the child should listen to them no matter the circumstance. Communication is limited and is often just the parent talking to (or yelling) at the child. Punishments are common among authoritarian parents, as they are focused on making the child sorry for their mistakes, instead of letting them learn from the mistakes. This typically makes them less caring.

Because of all of that, the side effects of being a child raised by authoritarian parents include lower self-esteem, because they were not respected as children; hostility, because they need to let out the anger that they’ve been holding back from their parents; and dishonesty, because they’ve become good at lying and holding information back from their parents.

Authoritative

Authoritative parents should not be confused with authoritarian parents. They set clear rules and high expectations for their children, and unlike authoritarian parents, explain why the rules matter. Being naturally supportive of their child’s development, they take children’s opinions, feelings, and input into account while still showing that they are in charge. They also invest in the prevention of behavioral issues before they start. Positive disciplining, like reward systems, are also common.

Authoritative parents have been shown to raise the most kids with responsibility and comfort with expressing their feelings. They have also been shown to be more decisive, happy, successful, and better at evaluating problems. Authoritative parenting has been proven to be the best overall type of parenting.

Permissive

Permissive parents set rules, but hardly ever enforce them very strictly. They are very lenient, and only get involved when something serious happens. Expectations are set low, minimally, or not at all. Permissive parents allow their children to be open about their problems, but let the children figure out for themselves what to do. They don’t put much effort into discouraging bad behavior. These kinds of parents tend to be warm and nurturing, but are more like friends than parents, because they think children should figure things out on their own.

Children with permissive parents are more likely to struggle academically and have behavioral problems, since they aren’t used to having enforced rules. Health problems may also be prevalent, because permissive parents aren’t strictly enforcing good health habits.

Uninvolved

Uninvolved parents give their children a lot of freedom. They set very few rules, generally stay out of their child’s way, and don’t give them much attention or guidance. Many uninvolved parents expect their children to raise themselves. They may act like they don’t care about their child’s life, but that may not be true. Uninvolved parents may have problems with mental health or substance abuse. They also might have a lot of other pressure on their shoulders. Generally, uninvolved parents have something else in their lives that prevents them from giving full attention to their children.

Children raised by uninvolved parents are generally moodier and have low self-esteem. They can exhibit behavioral problems and perform poorly in school.

What kind of parenting style am I?

No one is black and white. You probably show traits from more than one of these categories. However, an authoritative parent has been shown to be the best parenting type for bringing up children. You can strive to be an authoritative parent by setting rules, but explaining to your child why they matter to his/her future or safety. This way, you set up an optimistic future for your children.