Parenting Styles

Parents demonstrate varying levels of warmth, expectations for  adherence to rules, and openness of communication with children.  Understanding the characteristics and outcomes associated with parenting  styles can guide you in helping parents develop the most effective  skills for raising their children.

Tasks:

Use your textbook, the Argosy University online library resources,  and the Internet to review the following parenting styles:  authoritarian, authoritative, permissive (Baumrind, 1971), and  disengaged (Novak & Pelaez, 2004). After reviewing the styles,  answer the following questions:

• Which parenting style or styles did your parents use? Describe the impact on your development.
• If you are a parent, which style have you seen to be most or least effective?
• If you are not a parent, which style do you imagine you would use?  Discuss the impact of various aspects of culture on parenting styles.  Are there some cultural groups that would benefit from one style of  parenting more than others?

Support your answers with research and developmental theory. Consider  outcomes to Erikson’s stages for each parenting style. For example,  which style is most likely to produce a positive outcome during the  stage of trust versus mistrust? How would each parenting style impact  psychosocial development according to Erikson?