Parenting Styles

Research consistently points to the significant influence parents have on the developmental characteristics of their children. In an influential line of research, initially developed by Diana Baumrind in the 1960s, parenting style is conceptualized as the values parents hold with regard to the nature of their parenting, including their roles and responsibilities as parents, which are reflected in the practices and behaviors they employ when interacting with their child. More specifically, the ways parents balance parental responsiveness and parental demandingness give rise to four parenting styles: authoritative, authoritarian, indulgent, and neglecting. Each parenting style reflects different, naturally occurring patterns of parental behaviors, values, and practices, and suggests different relationships between parents and their children. An extensive body of research has relied on this approach and shows that each parenting style predicts outcomes for children in all realms of their lives, including socially, psychologically, academically, and physically.