Parenting Styles

Parenting Styles

In response to your questions, we’ve just added this section to the website!!  Here we will discuss different styles and philosophies of rearing children and being a parent.  You can use this information to help you make decisions about your own strategies and approaches.  You will have a better understanding of individual variation and of what to expect from your style — or styles! — of parenting.

Positive Parenting: a loving authority

 

 

“Positive Parenting” refers to a fairly broad range of approaches and strategies that share a core view that children thrive when they are respected and guided with sensitivity. The term contrasts with ideas about child rearing that focus on what is negative or “bad” in children and to discipline approaches that rely on punishment rather than guiding and teaching. The term “positive” broadly refers to two ideas. One is noticing and supporting positive things children do; the other is behaving in a positive . . .

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What’s Your Dominant Style: Authoritative, Authoritarian or Permissive?

BACKGROUND
In 1971 psychologist Diana Baumrind published a detailed longitudinal study of 133 parents of preschoolers that involved observations, interviews and questionnaires. She was able to classify most of the parents into one of three styles: Authoritarian (20%), Authoritative (19%) and Permissive (30%). A small group (8%) were classified as rejecting-neglecting and the remaining parents used a mixture of styles.

Since then a number of other researchers have used these groupings and Baumrind herself has extended the original research. The categories quickly made it into the popular press. Most parents today have heard of them.

Even more important than . . .

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QUICK INSIGHT: REWARDS ARE BETTER THAN PUNISHMENTS

REWARDS ARE BETTER THAN PUNISHMENTS (BUT GIVE THE RIGHT KIND OF REWARD)

It’s so easy to threaten that some privilege or item will be taken away, or that misbehaviors will lead some future unpleasant consequences. We all do it. It seems like those kinds of warnings should guide kids to think before they act and entice them to behave well. Sometimes, awareness of consequences does guide children. But rewards are even more powerful.

Research shows that rewards are much more effective than threats — for children and adults alike. We humans intuitively do things more quickly to gain . . .

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