Parenting Blog

My Aha! Parenting moment this week happened when a reporter asked me about the four different parenting styles that psychologists say describe most parents.  These were originally developed by Diana Baumrind about fifty years ago, and are accepted by most child development specialists today.

The four styles are:

1. Authoritarian- These are parents who have high expectations of their kids, which is a good thing, research shows.  That’s how kids get good grades, learn to manage themselves responsibly, and stay out of trouble.  The problem with these parents is that they don’t offer their kids much support.  It’s pull up your socks, straighten up and fly right, my way or the highway.  These parents were usually parented this way themselves, and think they came out fine, but research shows their kids end up rebellious – and looking for love in all the wrong places, like the peer group.

2. Permissive- These are parents who offer their kids lots of support. Nothing wrong with that at all.  The problem with these parents is that they don’t have high expectations.  Some of them believe that’s a good thing – they wouldn’t want to get in the way of their child’s natural development.  Others just can’t bear to have their child face something difficult even for a moment, so they make a lot of excuses for their kid.  Most of these parents are trying hard not to repeat their own parents’ tough-love parenting style, so they go overboard in the other direction.  Don’t get me wrong – you can never offer your child too much respect and empathy.  But you can certainly prevent them from learning responsibility and developing confidence in themselves by always rescuing them.  And if you let your child walk all over you or other people, what are you teaching him about relationships?  These kids are often self-centered and spoiled.  Worse yet, they’re often miserable and insecure because they haven’t been helped to learn internal discipline to accomplish anything.

3. Uninvolved- There have always been parents who can’t give their kids the love and attention they need, either because of alcoholism, narcissism, or just external pressures like needing to work two jobs to support the family.  But these parents seem to me to be even more prevalent today, at least in some communities, where we rationalize thrusting kids into daycare at ever earlier ages for ever-longer hours, and then as they grow up we push them into the arms of their peer group, so that we have little or no influence on them by the time they’re teenagers.  These parents sometimes vanish into drug addiction or abandon the family, but there are plenty of seemingly normal families where the parents are too focused on their own work or social lives to engage deeply with their kids.  It’s not unusual to see these parents lavish money on their kids instead of attention.  This is always a message to the child that he isn’t worth loving, and if both parents are uninvolved, you can pretty much count on the kid having substance abuse or other major issues.

4. The final parenting style, is, of course, the one Baumrind’s research showed raises the best-adjusted kids. The Authoritative parents offer their kids lots of love and support, like the permissive parents.  But they also hold high expectations, like the authoritarian parents.  Age-appropriate expectations, of course – they aren’t expecting a three year old to clean up her room by herself.  But they may well be working with that three year old to help her clean up, over and over and over, so that by six she really can clean up her room herself.  These parents are involved -- even demanding.  They expect family dinners, lots of discussion straight through high school, good grades, responsible behavior.  But they also offer their kids complete support to learn how to achieve these expectations.  Their kids, not surprisingly, stay close to them – they often describe one of their parents as the person they would most trust to talk to about a problem.  These kids are usually high achievers in school, and they’re also the ones that teachers describe as responsible and well-liked, simply nice, considerate kids who are a pleasure to have around.

Where’s the Aha! Moment in this?  Well, the reporter asked me to describe how each style of parent would handle a couple of specific incidents.  For instance, what do you do when your child brings home a bad report card?

Authoritarian- Yells at kid, and without any discussion grounds them until next report card, which had better have improved grades. End of discussion. Maybe a tutor is hired, which is presented as a punishment, and maybe substituted for an activity the kid loved, like playing basketball.  The kid is left de-motivated, angry, and has to figure any improvement out for himself.

Permissive- Listens empathically. Accepts child’s excuse that it’s all the teacher’s fault, and asks the child to please try to do better next time.  She may tell the child she believes in him, or even make a suggestion about working harder – but she doesn’t give him any real help in figuring out how to change things, in the form of new structure so he can actually accomplish real change.

Uninvolved- What report card?  Or, if they do see it, they don’t notice that it’s a Xerox and some of the grades have been changed.  Don’t laugh – some of my son’s friends did this routinely in high school.

Authoritative- Asks child whether he’s surprised by the report card, and lots of other questions about what happened. Listens empathically.  Asks child what he thinks he can do to learn the material and bring his grades up. Agrees on a plan with the child: No more texting, chatting, listening to music, web-surfing or tv while doing homework. (Most kids can’t handle these distractions; they’re a privilege, not a right.)  No more TV during the week to allow extra study time for catching up with the work. 

Homework will be done at dining room table next to the parent, who will be doing her own paperwork, (or if it’s done before the parent gets home, it will be explained to the parent, because the best way to learn is to teach.)  The parent will make these study sessions an opportunity for fun and connection, with some nice moments of humor and maybe a nightly snack.  The parent will also help the child study for every test and will give a final read to every paper.  The parent may need to help the child learn to structure his time, keep track of assignments, and stay organized. 

Weekend homework will get done on Saturday mornings rather than Sunday nights. Naturally, the child is unhappy about this new regimen, and the parent commiserates: “I know, it’s a big change.  You liked things the old way.  But it wasn’t fair to you – it wasn’t helping you learn the material and do well in school.”  Notice there’s no punishment, no blame, nothing punitive at all. 

The parent also reassures the child: “I am committed to you learning this material and doing well in school.  I know this seems hard, but I promise you that in a month you will feel so much better about school.  You will be understanding what is going on in class and showing your teachers how smart you really are.  You have all the brains you need to do this work. You just need some help to learn to organize yourself and keep up with the work.  That’s hard for most kids.  But I’m here to help.  And at the end of the month, when we hear from your teachers how much progress you’ve made, you ‘re going to be so proud of yourself -- and you and I will celebrate together.”

Now, here’s the Aha Moment.  The reporter responded, “But isn’t that authoritarian? Making them give up TV?  I thought authoritative was a middle ground, so you would give some punishment – maybe ground them for a shorter time.”

And that was my Aha!. Most parents think the best parenting course is the middle ground, the compromise.  But they still think in terms of punishment, so they’re always looking for the appropriate discipline for a given infraction.  So it ends up being a  middle ground of discipline, with some punishment – but they also settle for a middle ground of reduced expectations.

But what best serves our kids, what is often called Authoritative, doesn’t have any discipline.  It has just as high expectations as Authoritarian.  There’s no permissiveness, no compromise, no middle ground, in our expectations. But there’s also no need for discipline, which just alienates kids.  Instead, these kids get tremendous empathy, and all the help they need in learning to manage themselves, from their parents.

The difference between authoritarian and authoritative is the understanding and respect offered to the child. The difference between permissive and authoritative is the high expectations.  And the difference in parental involvement should be obvious – the authoritative parents are the most involved of any of the parenting styles.  Which is probably why they’re happier parents.

So there’s no middle ground here, no compromise in giving our kids what they need. High expectations, high support.

That’s an Aha! Parenting moment. And one of the biggest secrets of happy parents.