Read the Passage! Do you agree or disagree, or can you relate to his or her opinion in the post? ADD any thoughts or additional information that you may have found concerning their topic?
Parenting styles can tell a lot about how a person was raised themselves, and in how their interactions with their own parents has influenced how they choose to parent their children. The three best-known parenting types are authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive. Per Seccombe (2018, p. 253), the authoritative style involves high levels of control over the child but is also warm and receptive. The authoritative style of parenting has been thought of as a way of striking balance between the other two styles.
Authoritarian parenting is often associated with strict parents who wield complete control and power over the household and who do not entertain their children’s opinions or any perceived pushback. Per Dewar (2018), authoritarian parents show high levels of control but low levels of warmth and are likened to something resembling a drill sergeant. They also go on to point out that children whose parents are harsh and demand control, tend to have behavioral problems (para. 2).
The third style is known as the permissive style and is often associated with parents who want to be friends as opposed to authority figures to their children. Per Seccombe (2018, p. 253), this style requires few demands of the child and does not hold them accountable for behaviors and responsibilities. Per Cherry (2021), these types of parents are unfortunately often associated with producing children that show poor emotional regulation and self-control.
My parents were raised in the ‘60’s and 70’s, and were both subject to a mixture of parenting styles which influenced how they parented my brother and I. My mother tried to be an authoritarian parent often because she let her religious views dictate how she “believed” she should parent us. My father on the other hand, would have been a naturally authoritative aren’t if he had been able to parent his own way. Both of my parents had at least one authoritarian parent, and one that was authoritative. So oftentimes, my brother and I got mixed signals about what was expected of us, and we were never sure which version of our parents we would get.
My dad was quick to anger and would fly off the handle over nothing but could also be a very laid-back person as equally as not. He was much more action-oriented where our mother was much more emotionally manipulative and would guilt-trip us into doing what she felt was best. Ultimately, we were both emotional messes when we left home! I do not think my parents used the best style of parenting for myself or my brother. We have largely parentified ourselves because of the dysfunction we encountered growing up.
I believe most parents out there do try to do the best they can as parents, and that they try to parent from a perspective of love and respect for their children. I also understand that some people simply should never be parents. I think the best parents are the ones who leave space for conversations that ae truly two-sided, who openly admit their parenting mistakes and are willing to make changes, who respect that their children are not extensions of themselves, and who understand that parenting is a gift that has so many more rewards than challenges!
