Parenting can be a scary thing, especially for New Jersey parents blazing new ground with their first or oldest child. It’s difficult to know what’s best for your children, and how to approach raising them to be the most productive and happy adults they can be.
Parenting styles will have a massive impact on your child’s development, setting the tone for the rest of their lives. When a couple is together, hopefully they can align their styles. In the case of divorce or separation, parenting styles can impact child custody if those styles diverge.
Types of parenting styles
According to prominent child psychologists Diana Baumrind, Macoby and Martin, there are four main parenting styles :
- Authoritarian style, in which parents make strict demands, but offer little guidance and support.
- Permissive style, in which parents allow their children great freedom while acting as much as a friend as a parent.
- Uninvolved style, in which parents interact with and ask relatively little from their children.
- Authoritative style, in which parents make stronger demands of their children, but offer a great deal of guidance and support.
Impact of different parenting styles
Out of the four parenting styles, uninvolved parenting produces the worst outcomes. Children raised in this way tend to achieve the least and be least happy. The permissive style also tends to produce children who achieve relatively poorly, often struggling with authority.
Children raised with an authoritarian style tend to be high achievers. However, their self-esteem and happiness is often fairly low. Out of the four styles, authoritative parenting produces the best outcomes, with a greater percentage of children being both high achieving and happy in life.
It’s no exaggeration to say that your parenting style will be one of the biggest shapers of your children’s lives. Be sure to take great care in choosing how you’ll approach your duty as a parent.