THE TRUTH ON AUTHORITATIVE PARENTING STLYE
Authoritative Parenting Style
THE TRUTH ON AUTHORITATIVE PARENTING STLYE
General Benefits of the Authoritative Parenting
Student ID 80001023
Southern Cross International College
Path Education Group
(Malaysia)
Authoritative Parenting Style 2
General Benefits of the Authoritative Parenting
Each day more than three-quarters of a million adults around the world experience the joys and heartaches, the challenges and rewards, of becoming new parents. Despite the fact that most people become parents, and everyone who ever lived has had parents, parenting remains a somewhat mystifying subject about which almost everyone has opinions of which few people agree. But the continuing task of parents in each generation is to prepare children of the next generation for the physical, economic, and psychosocial situations in which our children must survive and thrive. Many factors influence the development of children, but parenting style and parenthood are the "final common pathway" to childhood oversight and care giving, development and stature, adjustment and success. The fit is neat because childhood is the phase of the life cycle when parent-provided experiences are believed to exert their most significant and salient influences: Not only is the sheer amount of interaction between parent and child greatest then, but childhood is the time when human beings are particularly susceptible and responsive to external experiences. Parental influence, and prolonged learning, is thought to be the evolutionary reason for building of the childhood experiences.
There are questions that needs to be addressed on the positives of authoritative parenting for parents, the present-day problems of authoritarian parents, and the results or reasons why we are who we are, and why we are so different from one another. We need to attend to what we know about the values and positive or negative aspects of the parenting style, and capitalize on that knowledge. Every day babies are born into the world and every one is unique and dear and special, and because we are all concerned how these children turn out, we need to turn our attention to the nature and dimensions of parenthood, the
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conditions of parenthood, and the concerns of parenthood, in short to refocus on parenting style which deem the best for the child. A simple analogy is to associate the bringing up of a child to an airplane flight; both need a clear destination, a flight plan, and a compass to keep them on course. I would add that both require careful and knowledgeable piloting. Like airplanes, which can stray from their flight plans but come back and (hopefully) arrive at their destination safely, families (the best of which go off course) can come back on their flight plan and reach a desired destination through knowledge, organization, and commitment. The turbulence is great way up there where families are trying to fly today, and good piloting; that is parenting style is required. As a consequence, we are moved to ask if the authoritative parenting style the best or the authoritarian parenting style have a positive outcome and the relationship between the two.
Certain tools can help to address these parenting requirements successfully. First, parents benefit from knowledge of how children develop. Therefore, the normative patterns and stages of children's physical, verbal, cognitive, emotional, and social development needs should be part of the knowledge base for parents. Concretely, parents' understanding the patterns and processes of their children's cognitive growth helps them to develop more realistic expectations of the stages of child development and the requisite skills for children's achieving more mature competencies.
Second, parents need to know how to observe young children. Child watching helps us to understand a child's level of development in relation to how we nurture the child with the correct parenting style. Parents need information and observation skills to help them discover the match between their child's ability or readiness and ways and means to help their child achieve developmental goals. Observing also allows parents to spot potential
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trouble early, and may help parents handle a child's daily frustrations more skillfully.
Third, parents need all manner of insights for managing their children's behaviors. Knowledge and skills regarding alternative methods of discipline and problem avoidance are basic. Parents' knowing how to implement a variety of positive rewards can help their children more fully enjoy and appreciate the exploration and struggles required in mastering new skills to enhance the parent-child relationship.
Fourth are supports for development. Knowing how to take advantage of settings, routines, and activities to create learning and problem-solving opportunities enhances parenthood and childhood. Parents realize that they exercise important influences on their children's development, but often do not fully appreciate how their day-to-day interactions affect children. They need to understand the tremendous impact they have on their children's lives through the simplest things: their attention, expressed pleasure, listening, and interest. These activities nourish a child's growing sense of self, just as food nourishes a child's growing body.
Positive programmes for parents are guided by beliefs in the consummate role of families in disciplining their own children and the importance of family participation in defining its own priorities and identifying appropriate intervention strategies. The responsibility for determining the child's best interests rests first and foremost with parents.
This paper outlines a conditional sequence model of optimal disciplinary responses and shows its consistency with a wide range of research. The model suggests that optimal disciplinary responses begin with less severe tactics, such as reasoning, but proceed to firmer disciplinary tactics when the initial tactic achieves neither compliance nor an acceptable compromise. The firmer tactics can be nonphysical punishment initially with
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non-abusive physical punishment reserved as a back-up for the nonphysical punishment. This is consistent with many studies showing that a combination of reasoning and punishment is more effective than either one alone and with new evidence that this sequence enhances the effectiveness of milder disciplinary tactics with preschoolers.
Child upbringing advice to parents has always been amazingly diverse, with major changes between generations and contradictory advice at any one time. The founder of behaviorism wrote a leading child upbringing book in the 1920s that advocated strictness and rigidity, even warning mothers against the dangers of expressing love toward their children (Watson, 1928). Spock's Child and Baby Care (1968) introduced a better balance between love and discipline, while affirming the common sense that most parents have.
Current popular child upbringing books often emphasize both nurturance and communication on the one hand or firm control on the other. Take, for example, the three best-selling popular books from my bookshelf. Thomas Gordon's (1975) book on Parent Effective Training emphasizes communication. 7 of his 16 chapters deal with communication. Not only does he advocate good communication, he is against forceful disciplinary tactics. "One thing [to learn] from this book," he said, is that "each and every time they force a child to do something by using their power or authority; they deny that child a chance to learn self-discipline" (p. 158). At the other extreme is James Dobson's (1970) book, Dare to Discipline. Four of his 7 chapters are on disciplinary responses to misbehavior. He is not against nurturance or communication, but the first of his five key elements is the following: "Developing respect for parents is the critical factor in child management." Elsewhere he said, "When a youngster tries . . . stiff-necked rebellion, you had better take it out of him, and pain is a marvelous purifier" (p. 16).
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A third best-seller presents more of a balance between the two extremes represented by Gordon and Dobson. Fitzhugh Dodson emphasizes both nurturance and control in his title, How to Discipline with Love. Although 6 of his 9 chapters are on discipline responses, his balance is represented by the following quote: "I believe it is far better to solve a conflict by negotiation and agreement rather than through power. However, in extreme cases . . . I believe we have to fall back on sheer power" (p. 92).
Cognitive developmental psychology and ...
This is a preview of the whole essay
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A third best-seller presents more of a balance between the two extremes represented by Gordon and Dobson. Fitzhugh Dodson emphasizes both nurturance and control in his title, How to Discipline with Love. Although 6 of his 9 chapters are on discipline responses, his balance is represented by the following quote: "I believe it is far better to solve a conflict by negotiation and agreement rather than through power. However, in extreme cases . . . I believe we have to fall back on sheer power" (p. 92).
Cognitive developmental psychology and behavioral parent training have had the most sustained series of empirical studies on parental discipline. Cognitive developmentalists recommend reasoning as a disciplinary response (Grusec & Kuczysnki, 1997; Grusec & Goodnow, 1994; Hoffman, 1977). Their measures of parental discipline often reflect this by including reasoning and gentle discipline tactics at one end of a continuum and harsh punishment at the other end (e.g., Kochanska, 1991; Weiss, Dodge & Bates, 1992). In contrast, behavioral parent trainers feature consistent use of punishment as a response to misbehavior in training parents to manage their disruptive children more effectively (Patterson, 1982). They generally regard reasoning as an ineffective discipline tactic (e.g., Blum, Williams, Friman & Christopherson, 1995), except for descriptions of the contingencies of punishment and reinforcement.
A few experts have bridged the conceptual gap, most notably Diana Baumrind in her work on parenting styles. She contrasted three major parenting styles, authoritarian, authoritative, and permissive. Authoritarian parents emphasized firm control, permissive parents' emphasized nurturance, whereas authoritative parents emphasized both. In addition, authoritative parents emphasized communication with their children and encouraged age-appropriate skills and autonomy. The children of authoritative parents
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generally showed more individual initiative and social responsibility in Baumrind's studies, compared to children of the other two types of parents.
The contradictory recommendations of cognitive developmental vs. clinical behavioral research concerning reasoning vs. punishment are an important puzzle that needs solved to have a good scientific foundation for advising parents. Solving that puzzle has been a major goal of my own research programme. Something is wrong when the most recommended disciplinary tactic in developmental psychology is totally ignored in clinical behavioral work with parents and when the centrality of effective punishment in the clinical work is directly contradicted in the developmental literature. The two literatures generally ignore each other on this matter, with a few exceptions.
The strange situation is reflected in the kinds of research questions asked and the measures used, which often assume the correctness of the author's implicit recommendations. For example, few studies investigate differences between effective and counter productive use of a particular disciplinary tactic, whether reasoning or punishment. Instead, the preferred disciplinary tactic is assumed to be invariably effective and the other one invariably ineffective, thus thwarting finer discriminations about their respective effectiveness. While defining, I am also attempted to compare the effectiveness of reasoning and punishment with each other and with other disciplinary responses.
Another advantage of a reasoning-punishment combination is that it enhances the subsequent effectiveness of reasoning when used by itself. Three different analyses that I have read showed that disciplinary reasoning with 2 and 3 year-olds was ineffective unless it was backed up with punishment periodically. The children whose behavior improved the most over the next 20 months were those whose mothers frequently used reasoning alone
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(i.e., without punishment), but also backed up the reasoning with punishment when necessary. In contrast, the children whose behavior deteriorated the most had mothers who frequently used reasoning alone, but rarely backed it up with punishment.
There have been several theories proposed to explain the presumed greater effectiveness of reasoning in developmental psychology. Three of these will be briefly considered for their consistency with the conditional sequence model. Hoffman (1977) constructed that all disciplinary responses have an element of power assertion and an element of reasoning, which he called induction. The reasoning component was most crucial for moral internalization. Its effectiveness was influenced by combining it with the right amount of power assertion. Parents needed to use just enough power assertion for the child to attend to the reasoning component, but not so much as to undermine the child's cognitive processing capability. Hoffman's theory predicts that an intermediate level of power assertion would maximize the effectiveness of reasoning as a disciplinary tactic, which Larzelere and Merenda (1994) found. The finding that reasoning was associated with better child behavior than was punishment had been the primary empirical support for the theory previously. The effectiveness of reasoning is greatest at an intermediate level of child distress when reasoning is combined with punishment, but not when it is combined with forced compliance (Larzelere & Merenda, 1994; Merenda, 1992). It provides a little support for the motivational differences between punishment and forced compliance.
Mark Lepper (1983) has used attribution theory to explain the supposed greater effectiveness of mild disciplinary responses compared to severe disciplinary responses. However, the contradictory evidence remains the fact that the combination of reasoning and punishment is more effective than reasoning alone and that reasoning is more effective
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when parents communicate more intensely, thus raising the level of child distress a little bit. Lepper's theory assumes that children make attributions about their own behavior in the same way that adults do. Children do not fully develop these tendencies until about age 7. In particular, they do not use the discounting principle to explain other people's behavior until then. The discounting principle implies that internal reasons for good behavior (for oneself and others) get discounted to the extent that there are external reasons for that behavior (e.g., an overbearing, punitive parent). Unlike adults, preschool children use the additive principle, that external reasons enhance attributed internal motivations for good behavior. Thus, parental punishment will not undermine moral internalization in children until they are about 7 years of age. The conditional sequence model fits right into those developmental changes. Punishment has a role during the preschool years when it would not undermine moral internalization. But its major role should be to enforce gentler disciplinary tactics such as reasoning, preparing for the day when mild disciplinary responses will be optimal for moral internalization. Lepper's theory assumes that gentler disciplinary responses will be as effective in gaining compliance as more forceful responses. The conditional sequence model suggests how gentler disciplinary responses come to have the effectiveness necessary for them to facilitate moral internalization.
Finally, Bell's (1986) control system model overlaps with the conditional sequence model in important ways. A classic article by Bell (1968) had argued that most associations between parental disciplinary tactics and child behavior could reflect the child's influence on the parent rather than the parent's influence on the child. The control system model goes beyond that by focusing on how parents and children regulate each other in ways similar to a thermostat. When children's behavior gets too inappropriate, then parents respond with
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upper limit controls to reduce or redirect such excess behavior. When children are too shy and withdrawn, then parents respond with lower limit controls to prime or stimulate appropriate behavior. To extend the response further, parents may have yet another set of responses to maintain or direct appropriate child behavior in between upper and lower limit controls.
The relevance of Bell's theory for the conditional sequence model is that the punishment tactics may need to be used more often as upper limit controls than as maintenance responses or lower limit controls. Punishment will be elicited more often by children who act out, a conclusion consistent with a wide range of research. Whether punishment is more effective with more aggressive children is debatable, but there are some supporting lines of evidence. A second piece of evidence is from the Straus et al. (1997) data set. In three of the five cohorts, the apparent effect of spanking frequency depended upon the initial level of antisocial behavior (Straus, 1997, personal communication). For children initially high on antisocial behavior, spanking frequency reduced their subsequent level of antisocial behavior. For children who were lowest on antisocial behavior, spanking frequency increased their subsequent level of antisocial behavior. In terms of Bell's control system model, this suggests that punishment is more effective as an upper limit control than as a maintenance or lower limit control. Consistent with the conditional sequence model, parents should be looking for opportunities to use gentler disciplinary responses when they can. The Straus et al. evidence suggests that frequent spanking becomes counter productive with relatively well behaved children.
There are optimal ways to combine love and limits in disciplinary responses than to focus too much on disciplinary responses and ignoring the many important aspects of
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positive parenting of which the larger parenting context. It fits Baumrind's classic work on authoritative parenting that deals with the characteristic of authoritative parents than of either authoritarian or permissive parents (Baumrind, 1967). Many of the characteristics are consistent with the conditional sequence model. Other characteristics go beyond it in important ways, particularly in the specifics of nurturance and maturity demands. Nurturance, age-appropriate autonomy, skill development, family routines, and family rituals are some of the characteristics of optimal parent-child relationships. These characteristics are important in their own right and also important for setting the stage for optimal disciplinary responses. Those responses should reflect the best balance of love and firmness.
It has always been interesting to understand how parents influence the development of children's social and instrumental competence and the subject has always be an interest to developmental psychologists since at least the 1920s. In defining the "parenting style", I will explore four types, and discuss the consequences of the different styles for children. Parenting is a complex activity that includes many specific behaviors that work individually and together to influence child outcomes. Although specific parenting behaviors, such as spanking or reading aloud, may influence child development, looking at any specific behavior in isolation may be misleading. Many researchers have noted that specific parenting practices are less important in predicting child well-being than is the broad pattern of parenting. Most researchers who attempt to describe the broad parental milieu rely on Diana Baumrind's concept of parenting style. The construct of parenting style is used to capture normal variations in parents' attempts to control and socialize their children (Baumrind, 1991). Two points are critical in understanding this definition. First, parenting
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style is meant to describe normal variations in parenting. In other words, the parenting style typology Baumrind developed should not be understood to include deviant parenting, such as might be observed in abusive or neglectful homes. Second, Baumrind assumes that normal parenting revolves around issues of control. Although parents may differ in how they try to control or socialize their children and the extent to which they do so, it is assumed that the primary role of all parents is to influence, teach, and control their children.
Parenting style captures two important elements of parenting: parental responsiveness and parental demandingness (Maccoby & Martin, 1983). Parental responsiveness (also referred to as parental warmth or supportiveness) refers to "the extent to which parents intentionally foster individuality, self-regulation, and self-assertion by being attuned, supportive, and acquiescent to children's special needs and demands" (Baumrind, 1991, p. 62). Parental demandingness (also referred to as behavioral control) refers to "the claims parents make on children to become integrated into the family whole, by their maturity demands, supervision, disciplinary efforts and willingness to confront the child who disobeys" (Baumrind, 1991, pp. 61- 62).
Categorizing parents according to whether they are high or low on parental demandingness and responsiveness creates a typology of four parenting styles: indulgent, authoritarian, authoritative, and uninvolved (Maccoby & Martin, 1983). Each of these parenting styles reflects different naturally occurring patterns of parental values, practices, and behaviors (Baumrind, 1991) and a distinct balance of responsiveness and demandingness.
Indulgent parents (also referred to as "permissive" or "nondirective") "are more responsive than they are demanding. They are nontraditional and lenient, do not require
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mature behavior, allow considerable self-regulation, and avoid confrontation" (Baumrind, 1991, p. 62). Indulgent parents may be further divided into two types: democratic parents, who, though lenient, are more conscientious, engaged, and committed to the child, and nondirective parents.
Authoritarian parents are highly demanding and directive, but not responsive. "They are obedience and status-oriented, and expect their orders to be obeyed without explanation" (Baumrind, 1991, p. 62). These parents provide well-ordered and structured environments with clearly stated rules. Authoritarian parents can be divided into two types: nonauthoritarian-directive, who are directive, but not intrusive or autocratic in their use of power, and authoritarian-directive, who are highly intrusive.
Authoritative parents are both demanding and responsive. "They monitor and impart clear standards for their children's conduct. They are assertive, but not intrusive and restrictive. Their disciplinary methods are supportive, rather than punitive. They want their children to be assertive as well as socially responsible, and self-regulated as well as cooperative" (Baumrind, 1991, p. 62).
Uninvolved parents are low in both responsiveness and demandingness. In extreme cases, this parenting style might encompass both rejecting-neglecting and neglectful parents, although most parents of this type fall within the normal range.
Parenting style is a typology, rather than a linear combination of responsiveness and demandingness, each parenting style is more than and different from the sum of its parts (Baumrind, 1991). In addition to differing on responsiveness and demandingness, the parenting styles also differ in the extent to which they are characterized by a third dimension: psychological control. Psychological control "refers to control attempts that
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intrude into the psychological and emotional development of the child" (Barber, 1996, p. 3296) through use of parenting practices such as guilt induction, withdrawal of love, or shaming. One key difference between authoritarian and authoritative parenting is in the dimension of psychological control. Both authoritarian and authoritative parents place high demands on their children and expect their children to behave appropriately and obey parental rules. Authoritarian parents, however, also expect their children to accept their judgments, values, and goals without questioning. In contrast, authoritative parents are more open to give and take with their children and make greater use of explanations. Thus, although authoritative and authoritarian parents are equally high in behavioral control, authoritative parents tend to be low in psychological control, while authoritarian parents tend to be high.
Parenting style has been found to predict child well-being in the domains of social competence, academic performance, psychosocial development, and problem behavior. Research based on parent interviews, child reports, and parent observations consistently finds:
. Children and adolescents whose parents are authoritative rate themselves and are rated by objective measures as more socially and instrumentally competent than those whose parents are nonauthoritative (Baumrind, 1991; Weiss & Schwarz, 1996; Miller et al., 1993).
2. Children and adolescents whose parents are uninvolved perform most poorly in all domains.
3. Children and adolescents from authoritarian families (high in demandingness, but low in responsiveness) tend to perform moderately well in school and be
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uninvolved in problem behavior, but they have poorer social skills, lower self-
esteem, and higher levels of depression.
4. Children and adolescents from indulgent homes (high in responsiveness, low in demandingness) are more likely to be involved in problem behavior and perform less well in school, but they have higher self-esteem, better social skills, and lower levels of depression.
In general, parental responsiveness predicts social competence and psychosocial functioning, while parental demandingness is associated with instrumental competence and behavioral control (i.e., academic performance and deviance). In reviewing the literature on parenting style, one is struck by the consistency with which authoritative upbringing is associated with both instrumental and social competence and lower levels of problem behavior in both boys and girls at all developmental stages. The benefits of authoritative parenting and the detrimental effects of uninvolved parenting are evident as early as the preschool years and continue throughout adolescence and into early adulthood. Although specific differences can be found in the competence evidenced by each group, the largest differences are found between children whose parents are unengaged and their peers with more involved parents. Differences between children from authoritative homes and their peers are equally consistent, but somewhat smaller (Weiss & Schwarz, 1996). Just as authoritative parents appear to be able to balance their conformity demands with their respect for their children's individuality, so children from authoritative homes appear to be able to balance the claims of external conformity and achievement demands with their need for individuation and autonomy.
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It is important to distinguish between differences in the distribution and the correlates of parenting style in different sub-populations. Although in the United States authoritative parenting is most common among intact, middle-class families of European descent, the relationship between authoritativeness and child outcomes is quite similar across groups. There are some exceptions to this general statement, however, in terms of demandingness it appears to be less critical to girls' than to boys' well-being (Weiss & Schwarz, 1996), and authoritative parenting predicts good psychosocial outcomes and problem behaviors for adolescents in all ethnic groups studied (African, Asian, European, and Hispanic Americans), but it is associated with academic performance only among European Americans and, to a lesser extent, Hispanic Americans (Steinberg, Dornbusch, & Brown, 1992; Steinberg, Darling, & Fletcher, 1995). Chao (1994) and others (Darling & Steinberg, 1993) have argued that observed ethnic differences in the association of parenting style with child outcomes may be due to differences in social context, parenting practices, or the cultural meaning of specific dimensions of parenting style. Chao (1994) suggested another limitation to the general benefit of authoritative parenting, namely that its meaning may defer in different cultural context.
Parenting style provides a robust indicator of parenting functioning that predicts child well-being across a wide spectrum of environments and across diverse communities of children. Both parental responsiveness and parental demandingness are important components of good parenting. Authoritative parenting, which balances clear, high parental demands with emotional responsiveness and recognition of child autonomy, is one of the most consistent family predictors of competence from early childhood through adolescence. However, despite the long and robust tradition of research into parenting style, a number of
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issues remain outstanding. Foremost among these are issues of definition, developmental change in the manifestation and correlates of parenting styles, and the processes underlying the benefits of authoritative parenting.
Having understood the differences of parenting styles, I believe that it is not the authoritative or authoritarian behaviors per se that matter but the complex of cognitions, attributions, and affect that underlie the behaviors. Considering the positive outcomes of the authoritative parenting style and the cultural changes that's becoming of our society, we must allow some personal freedom and expression of desires and preferences. Children from authoritative homes may succeed better at school than others because authoritative climate at home prepares them to function well in authoritative contexts. In my discussion of the topic with some parents, it was the notion voiced by some parents that one needs to expose youngsters to harsh discipline "to prepare them to deal with real life encounters as in the National Service, where no logic and fairness are expected", as quoted by the parents in my discussion. It suggests that children experiencing authoritative parenting do not become soft or spoiled and unable to cope when times get though, and that these children are able to cope with the harsh environment and realities of life.
Authoritarian parents make the rules, expect unquestioned obedience from their children, punish misbehavior, and value obedience and authority. "Because I said so" is considered a sufficient reason for obedience. Parents using this parenting style tend to be uncommunicative, unresponsive, and somewhat distant. Parent's failure to provide a rationale for rules makes it hard for children to see any reason to follow them. The "Because I said so" technique may be effective when the parent is present but is ineffective when the parent is not around. This parenting style has been associated with low
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intellectual performance and lack of social skills, especially in boys. Extremely authoritarian parents tend to respond with anger when not blindly obeyed. This has potentially negative long-term consequences. In fact, anger is precisely the wrong emotion to direct at children if they are to thrive, to achieve, to be well adjusted and happy, and to become effective parents in the next generation.
In conclusion, parents should examine their parenting techniques according to what reasonable lesson will a child learn from the parent's actions. I remember getting a lot of responses from people who said my son didn't "fear" me (while he exhibited typical, age appropriate behaviors). My response was always I want my child to respect my authority, not fear I will beat him because some day he is going to bigger than I and how will I control him then? It now seems that my authoritative approach (one that is proven to produce children with healthy self-esteem, self-control, well behaved children) worked. Worked so well that I am constantly asked by friends and family on how do I do it, raising my son to become a friend and still respects my authoritative approach? I don't spank him (and haven't since he was two and only during a dangerous encounter with an electrical outlet), I don't humiliate him and I am consistent with his discipline. He knows what is expected of him. He knows what the consequences will be and that he will suffer them. He knows he will be rewarded for good behavior (with love, affection and praise and occasionally a special treat). He has no problems with self-esteem and thus far he has shown a good ability to problem solves and I rarely have behavior problems with him.
Personally, I think the authoritative parenting style has very positive outcomes especially if it's used consistently with all parents. I do not think that it may be the best form of parenting for every person. Some kids act out to one style and need a stricter
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environment, or they need to not feel like they have too many rules in order to feel they are making the right decisions on their own. I could really relate to it since I was raised with an authoritative parenting style. Some of my friends with more lenient parents thought my parents were strict on rules such as curfew, but I never felt like my parents were stifling me. They set rules, but they also let me be my own person. I think one of the most important parts of the authoritative parenting style is that the parents remain supportive and caring. I did not break the rules to spite my parents because I thought they were overbearing. On the other hand, I would not break rules because I did not want to upset my parents because I respected them. I also understood the more honest I was with them and the more I discussed what I did wrong, the more they would trust me and let me have more freedoms. Because they were so caring, I valued their opinion and usually believed that they knew what was best.
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