What Kind of Parent Are You (going to Be)

Raising children is a job all of its own. Eric comes home from a hard days work at the office and there is a message on his answering machine saying that little Billy had been suspended from school today for getting into a fistfight. Eric is upset and sent Billy to his room and tells him that he is grounded for a week. Eric didn't want to come home to this chaos; he was exhausted from working. He just wanted to relax. After Eric cools off, he tells Billy that he better not do it again and that he could be ungrounded if he cleans up his room. What kind of parenting did Eric just exercise? He essentially didn't punish Billy at all. What would have your dad done if you beat some kid up at school and got suspended?

All parents react in different ways to things that their children do. Dr. Diana Baumrind, a leading parenting sociologist, has classified the way that parents raise their children into four different parenting styles: authoritarian, authoritative, permissive and uninvolved (Darling 2). Authoritarian parents want control over their children's lives both physically and psychologically. Authoritative parents physically control their children, but don't need to brainwash them to do it. Permissive parents allow their children to make their own choices by allowing them to do what they wish. Uninvolved parents don't care about their children and usually neglect them. Only a small percentage of people are authoritarian or uninvolved parents. The authoritative and permissive parenting styles are the most widely used ones today (Darling 3).

Authoritative parents are both demanding and responsive to their children's actions. They monitor and set clear standards on how a child is to act and what will happen if they deviate from this. In the example about little Billy getting suspended from school, an authoritative parent would have grounded him and perhaps put him in time-out. He would stick to Billy's punishment and make him think about what he did. In contrast, permissive parents are more responsive than they are demanding of their children's actions. They are nontraditional and lenient towards them. They try to avoid confrontation with their children by allowing them to be free minded and do whatever they wish. The attitude of this type of parenting is not a very wise one to have. Permissive parents find that their children: get into arguments with teachers, tell someone "no" when they are told to do something, and yell and argue when they don't get what they want. In contrast, with the authoritative style of parenting, children are taught to respect everyone with authority by setting limits to tell them what they can and cannot do. The attitude of "no, because I don't want to" doesn't arise in children with this style of parenting because the children are punished if they act that way.

Permissive parents tend not actually "punish" their children; they usually just keep warning them to quit doing something or say something like "you better not do that again." The children take advantage of this situation by thinking "she's not going to do anything to me if I do this." Children from these families go out and vandalize mailboxes, come home at 11 o'clock instead of 8 o'clock, and eat half a box of cookies. They are not taught limits and don't think about the consequences of their actions because they have been taught that there are none.

Children of authoritative parents are punished, sometimes severely. Authoritative parents need to instill a "fear" into their children so that when they deviate they know that there are going to be consequences. These children still vandalize mailboxes, come home at 11 o'clock instead of 8 o'clock, and eat half a box of cookies--but only once or twice. The reason that they quit doing these things is because their parents set limits. Their children can have 2 cookies only after they eat their dinner. If they are more than 15 minutes late they are grounded for a week. If they destroy a mailbox they are to get spanked, are to pay for a new mailbox with their own money,