What is Your Parenting Style?

Are you authoritative or permissive parent?  Are you a free-range or a helicopter parent? Do you practice sharenting?  Do you practice slow parenting?

In college, I remember being taught about the different leadership styles based on the demands of the leader and the support being given by the leader.  The same matrix was originally designed for parenting.

21st Century Parenting

But before that, in the 21st century, more parenting styles have emerged.  Basically, they could fall into the 3 parenting styles above.  But some have become quite dominant that they deserved to have it’s own name.

Some names sound funny but they really exist.  And being a 21st century parent, we might be practicing them.

Sharenting – is the use social media by parents to share stories, photos, tweets, blogs and content based on their children.  Oops… 😀 The concern with sharenting is the privacy of child who has no decision of what is being shared by the parents.

Helicopter Parenting – is parenting in such a way that the parent pays extremely close attention to a child’s or children’s experiences and problems, particularly at educational institutions.  Helicopter parents tend to be present all the time wherever the child goes, and tends to be involve in all the child’s activities.

Free-Range Parenting – is a term coined by columnist Lenore Skenazy which is the exact opposite of Helicopter Parenting. Free-range parents provides their kids a certain amount of independence. According to Skenazy, “when you let children out, all the good things happen – the self-confidence, happiness, and self-sufficiency that come from letting our kids do some things on their own.

However, free-range kids are being limited by laws in some US states that requires an adult to be always present with a child below a specified age.  There have been instances where the police will put a child in custody when they are playing alone in a park near their house.  Tough laws!

Slow Parenting – is a new movement that let kids be kids and explore the world at their own pace. In today’s fast-paced environment, we sometimes want our child to be ahead. Kids get enrolled in art class, sports clinic, music lessons, and more. Parents plan for their kids.

Slow Parenting is the opposite.  There is no plan on what the kids will do. No rush. The parents will simply watch their children grow.  And, boy, they will grow fast. However, kids raised by slow parents might have fewer learning opportunities.

Being a millennial parent, I am guilty of some of these parenting styles. Can you relate to some of these parenting styles too?

Three Types of Parenting Styles

According to clinical and developmental psychologist Diane Baumrind, there are 3 different parenting styles based on “Parental Responsiveness” or support and “Parental Demandingness”.  The three parenting styles according the Diane Baumrind are:

• Authoritarian (“Too Hard”): the authoritarian parenting style is characterized by high demand with low support. The authoritarian parent expect their orders to be obeyed without question. They can be rigid, harsh, and demanding. Kids from authoritarian families may be relatively well-behaved. But they also tend to be less resourceful, have poorer social skills, and lower self esteem.
• Permissive (“Too Soft”): the permissive parenting style is characterized by low demand with high support. The permissive parent is responsive and warm.  However, they don’t like to impose rules or are inconsistent in enforcing them. Kids from permissive families tend to develop behavioral problems.
• Authoritative (“Just Right”): this parenting style is characterized by high demand with high support as well.  Baumrind prefers this parenting style. Authoritative parenting has a more balanced approach. Kids raised by authoritative parents are more likely to become independent, self-reliant, socially accepted, academically successful, and well-behaved.

Later, a fourth parenting style in the matrix was considered as Uninvolved Parenting.  But that is hardly being a parent.

So what kind of a parent are you? Which parenting style do you prefer? Share your thought in the comments below.

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