Parenting

The foundation of parenting styles:

• In the 1930s to the 1960s researchers employed a variety of theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches to identify the major dimensions underlying observer ratings of general parenting characteristics

• The 2 dimensions of parenting behaviour emerged from the research: parental acceptance, warmth or support and parental control

• Alot of consistency in early years of these studies

• In later years, a third general dimension was added to the assessment of parenting, this was structure. (Power, 2013)

• Structure was about demands and rules

Pioneer of parenting research:

• In her first study of parenting styles, Baumrind,1967 studied 3 groups of pre school children

• It was identified that they showed very different patterns of behaviour

• 1) assertive, self reliant and self controlled (n=13)

• 2) discontented, withdrawn and distrustful (n=11)

• 3) little self control or self reliance and retreat from novelty (n=8)

• Baumrind and Black (1967) studied a second sample of pre school children and examined the correlation between observer ratings of child behaviour in pre school and parenting practices

• (Based on both parent interviews and home observations)

• The correlations were consistent with the findings of the first study

• Baumrind (1971) rated parents from 134 families and grouped parents of 102 of these families into 8 parenting styles

• Parental dimensions were being evaluated, not specific parenting styles

• These findings have been seen to hold true to social class and ethnicity.

The 4 aspects of family functioning:

• (Baumrind, 1967)

• Warmth or nurturance, children with warm/nurturing parents have higher self esteem and carry altruistic traits

• Clarity and consistency of rules, degree of clarity of the parent’s control over the child. parents with clear rules have children who are much less likely to be defiant

• Levels of expectations (maturity demands), form of control, the most optimal outcome for the child is when parents avoid physical punishment and when parents don’t have unrealistic high expectations.

• Communication between parent and child, open and regular communication has been linked to positive outcomes, ideally parents should convey to what the child is saying. Children are more socially and emotionally mature when growing up in a strong communicative household

The parenting styles (Baumrind, 1967)

• Permissive, high warmth and low structure

• Very loving and accepting

• Few rules or inconsistent boundaries

• Children will have high self esteem and feel emotionally supported

• Authoritarian, low warmth and high structure

• Strict rules with little explanation

• High expectations for obedience

• Children will be obedient and disciplined

• Authoritative, high warmth and high structure

• Clear rules and expectations

• Warm, responsive and communicative

• Children will have strong self regulation and social skills

• Maccoby and Martin (1983) develop Baumrind’s parenting styles

• Based on the combination of two dimensions, demandingness and responsiveness, they define 4 parenting styles

• Authoritative, high demanding and high responsive, some level of control within the relationship with the child

• Children tend to show higher self esteem and show independence

• Authoritarian, high demanding and low responsive, very high demanding parent, very low responsive. Not as warm and nurturing as an authoritative parent

• Children tend to perform poorer academically and have less social skills. May also show high aggressiveness

• Indulgent (or permissive), low demanding and high responsive, low expectations from the parent, great communication

• Children do tend to show negative outcomes, tend to perform worse in school during adolescence, may be aggressive and immature in their behaviour

• Uninvolved, low demanding and low responsive, neglectful parenting style. No interest from this type of parent

• Consistently negative outcomes for the child, children show a lot of issues when it comes to social skills and less competence in terms of school

• Based on Maccoby and Martin’s work, Baumrind (1989,1991) expanded her work further, including the 4th parenting style introduced (neglectful)

Individual differences in parenting styles:

• Differences in parenting between mothers and fathers:

• Mothers are found to be more accepting, responsive and supportive as well as more behaviorally controlling, demanding autonomy-granting than fathers

• Fathers are reported to be more restrictive, coercive and harsher (as well as more punitive) and to show less parental concern than mothers

• Fathers tend to have an authoritarian parenting style

• These parental differences seem to apply to both boys and girls, regardless of their age (Yaffe,2023)

• Boys tend to perceive higher levels of criticism and rejection in both mothers and fathers as opposed to girls (Ortega et al, 2023)

• This is consistent with the findings of Rodriiguez et al 2009, who reported that boys perceived higher levels of hostility eg (he/she acts as if i were a nuisance) and parental control eg (he/she wants to control everything i do compared to girls)

• Early adolescents aged 10-11 perceive greater paternal affect than 11-12 year olds (Ortega et al 2023)

• As age increases, perceived maternal affect declines and perceived maternal hostility increases (Rodriguez et al, 2009)

• Parents perceive themselves higher on either parental dimension (responsiveness and demandingness) than adolescents perceive their parents

• Mothers tend to exercise a warmer type of parenting and more confrontive type of parental control eg authoritative parenting patterns while fathers tend to exercise a more coercive type of parental control eg authoritarian parenting patterns

• Mothers reported employing a more authoritative style of parenting than fathers did, fathers reported employing a more authoritarian style of parenting patterns than mothers did (Yaffe, 2023)

• Differences in parenting based on age:

• Kashahu et al (2014) conducted a study in Albania

• Parents aged between 35-45 years old practice all styles of parenting where more than half of the parents in this age group practice authoritative style

• Parents in this age bracket also practice permissive style

• Parents under the age of 34 in more than half the cases are authoritarian and constitute a higher percentage of negligence

• Parents older than 45 practice either the authoritarian style or authoritative style

• Differences in parenting based on personality aspects:

• Frost et al 1991 found that in a sample of college women, perfectionism was associated with reports of harsh parenting styles

• Rice et al 1996 found that those with maladpative perfectionist styles described their parents as being more demanding and more critical than did those with adaptive perfectionsitic styles

• Flett et al 1995 also found an association between maladaptive perfectionism and reports of exposure to authoritarian parenting styles

• Extraversion seemed to be associated with authoritative parenting (Belsky and Barends, 2002)

• This could be due to mothers being more sensitive to their children’’s cue, more social interactions with the child increases communication

• This aligns with the high levels of support displayed in authoritative parenting

• Losoya et al 1997 found that conscientiousness was related to higher levels of supportive parenting and less negative control (a more permissive style)

• However probably a bit more higher control than an average permissive parent due to conscientiousness emphasising control

• Agreeableness has been shown to be positively associated with positive support and inversely with negative, controlling parenting (Losoya et al, 1997)

• Someone who is agreeable has a desire to maintain social relationships, not as intrusive when it comes to parenting, tend to show more positive support

• On the other hand, disagreeableness interfered with adaptive parenting, one aspect of authoritative parenting (Kochanska et al, 1997)

• Higher levels of parental agreeableness have been found to be associated with increased coercion (Prinzie et al, 2004), a part of parenting that is known to be ineffective for eliciting lasting positive behaviour from children (Strasberg et al, 1994)

• Extraversion and agreeableness were related to levels of supportiveness, more high responsive as a parent (Huver et al, 2010)

• Neuroticism is thought to be the most predictive of parenting styles (Belsky et al, 1995)

• Neurotic parents are believed to be less competent or capable of exerting authoritative parenting (Downey and Coyne, 1990, Kochanska et al., 1997, Kendler et al 1997) found neuroticism to be related to less parental warmth.

• According to Prinzie et al (2004) and Huver et al (2010), people in this category show reduced emotional stability and suggest it is associated with more overreacting eg more strict control

• Openness and parental support have been reported to coincide (Clark et al 2000, Losoya et al, 1997)

• Study by Bahrami et al, 2018) in Iran:

• Authoritative mothers had high scores in extraversion, openness to experience and conscientiousness and a low score in neuroticism

• Authoritarian and permissive mothers had high scores in neuroticism but low scores in extroversion, agreeableness and openness (in comparison to authoritative mothers)

• Authoritarian and authoritative mothers had the highest and a high score in conscientiousness, respectively.

What is the impact of different parenting styles?

• Developmental outcomes:

• An authoritative parenting style has consistently been associated with positive developmental outcomes in youth, eg psychosocial competence (maturation, resilience, optimism, self reliance, social competence and self esteem)

• Also associated with academic achievement (Baumrind, 1991, Lamborn et al 1991, Steinberg et al 1994)

• Findings regarding permissive/indulgent parenting have been inconsistent, yielding associations with internalizing (anxiety, depression, withdrawn behaviour, somatic complaints) and externalizing problem behaviour (school misconduct, delinquency)

• A somatic complaint is a physical symptom that arises from psychological distress rather than a clear medical cause

• Also with social skills, self confidence, self understanding and active problem coping (Lamborn et al, 1991, Steinberg et al, 1994, Williams et al 2009, Wolfradt et al, 2003)

• An authoritarian parenting style has consistently been associated with negative developmental outcomes such as aggression, delinquent behaviours, somatic complaints, depersonalisation and anxiety (Hoeve et al, 2008, Steinberg et al 1994, Williams et al 2009, Wolfradt et al, 2003)

• Children of neglectful parents have shown the least favourable outcomes on multiple domains, such as lacking self regulation and social responsibility

• Also having poor self reliance and social competence, poor school competence, anti social behaviour, delinquency, anxiety, depression and somatic complaints. (Baumrind 1991; Hoeve et al. 2008; Lamborn et al. 1991;
  Steinberg et al. 1994).

However:

• The empirical studies always started with parenting styles that were predefined in a pro typical score profile in terms of minimum or maximum limit scores (eg scores above or below the median) on the different parenting practices

• To empirically identify typologies in a certain population an exploratory clustering approach is needed (Everitt et al, 2001, Mandara, 2003)

• Such clustering methods entail that persons are assessed on different variables eg parenting practices and patterns that naturally occur in the data are identified

• These researchers basically suggested that we should not be looking for specific behaviours or ideas on parenting practices but should be analyzing with no pre conception about parenting styles

• The literature shows that researchers started to adopt such clustering methods in research into parenting styles about 15-20 years ago

• These studies have generally identified 3 or 4 parenting styles that resemble the initial theoretical parenting styles

• Initially Baurmrind paid little attention to the role of psychological control because her control dimension solely referred to parental socializing practices aimed at integrating the child in the family/society (Darling and Steinberg, 1993)

• Existing research provides little insight into the coexistence of maternal and paternal parenting styles and their joint impact on child development (Kuppens and Ceulemans, 2019)

• Alot of research typically from early 2000s pays little attention to joint parenting styles on child development

• Differences in parenting styles across different cultures:

• Most of the literature addressing parenting styles have been using western measures of parenting based on samples of white, European and american families (Checa, 2018)

• Although the model of the 4 parenting styles have been widely used, the data from some non western societies indicate that not all families can be fit into Baumrind’s model (Checa,2018)

• Reports of parental style perception obtained from adolescents from 8 Arab societies revealed 3 parenting patterns, as opposed to styles (controlling, flexible and inconsistent) that combine the categories proposed by Baumrind and indicate an orientation in parenting more than a specific style (Dwairy et al, 2006)

• Only 26% of Kim and Rohner’s 2002 sample of Korean American families fit into the Baumrind parenting categories

• Fletcher, Steinberg and Sellers (1999) had to drop 1/3 of their sample to recreate Baumrind’s categories in their large multi ethnic study that included African American’s, Asian Americans, European Americans, Hispanic Americans,Middle easterners, Native Americans and Pacific islanders

• Rohner (2000) had to eliminate almost 2/3 of an African American as well as a European American sample to accommodate Baumrind’s categories.

• Compared with American and Canadian parents, Chinese parents are more restrictive, controlling or authoritarian and less affectionate, autonomy encouraging or authoritative. (Chiu, 1987; Dornbusch, Ritter, Leiderman, Roberts & Fraleigh, 1987; Lin & Fu, 1990; Liu, Chen, Rubin et al., 2005; Steinberg, Dornbusch & Brown, 1992).

• Despite this research, it was shown that this parenting style was suitable for a Chinese society

• Chinese mothers display relatively higher rates of authoritarian behaviours than Canadian mothers while Canadian mothers displayed relatively higher rates of authoritative behaviours than Chinese mothers (Liu and Guo, 2010)

• Children of authoritative Canadian parents are more likely to perform better in
  math (Pratt et al., 1992), and to become better emotion regulators (Coplan et al., 2009) than children of authoritarian parents.

• Although Chinese parents are more controlling and authoritarian than North
  American parents, Chinese children perform equally well as, or even better
  than, their North American counterparts on academic achievement (e.g.
  Dornbusch et al., 1987; Stevenson, Lee, Chen, Stigler, Hsu & Kitamura, 1990).

• Malaysian parents from Malay, Chinese and Indian ethnic groups, promote authoritarian parenting and do not regard it as an unfavorable style of parenting (Keshavarz & Baharudin, 2009).

• College students from Nigeria, who were raised under authoritative, authoritarian, and authoritative/authoritarian parenting styles, were not different in their levels of sense of competence, need for achievement, locus
  of control, and academic achievement (Akinsola, 2011).

• This research states that Baumrind’s research does not apply to certain cultures

• In Spain, adolescents from permissive/indulgent parenting style families
  showed equal to or better scores in youth outcomes (academic, social,
  emotional, family and physical) than their peers from authoritative style
  families (Garcia & Gracia, 2009).

• Spanish school-age children showed that sensitive parenting style was
  not related to academic achievement but to school adjustment; meanwhile,
  coercive parenting style was negatively related to academic achievement (Checa & Abundis-Gutierrez, 2017).

• Showing a lot of control and having high expectations can lead to worse outcomes

• The effect of parenting styles on children appear to be similar across cultures (West and India), and culture does not serve as a moderator for parenting style and child outcome.

• An authoritative parenting style was associated with better outcomes than authoritarian and neglectful/uninvolved parenting style in both Western countries and in India (Sahithya et al., 2019).

• As mentioned, only 26% of Korean American families fit into the Baumrind parenting categories (Kim & Rohner, 2002).

• The authoritative parenting style in this sample was positively associated with adolescents’ academic achievement.

• This association differed depending on the gender of the parent: mothers’ parenting styles were not associated significantly with adolescents’ academic achievement.(Kim & Rohner, 2002).

• The fathers parenting style positively associated with academic achievement

• Asian cultures show authoritarian parenting when compared to the U.S. and Europe (Masud et al., 2014).

• Asian students demonstrate more effective academic achievement with
  parents who have attributes of authoritarian parenting as compared to the
  West and European countries where the majority of students’ academic
  achievement is the result of authoritative parenting (Masud et al., 2014)

• Parentin styles vary across different cultures,authoritative parenting style
  affects European American adolescents for the better while authoritarian
  parenting improves the academic performance of Asian American adolescents
  (Dornbusch et al.,1987).