Authoritarian Parenting Style

Throughout time, Developmental psychologist have been very interested in how parents and their parenting styles effect and impact child development.

Today I’m going to a focus and talk about the Authoritarian parenting style.

Authoritarian parents always try to be in control and place control on their children. These parents often set strict rules and they try to keep order, they usually do this without much warmth or affection.

Authoritarian parents can be critical of their children for not meeting certain standards that they have set.

They often don’t provide choices or options to their children and when the child asks “why” the parents would usually answer in response like “because I said so”

These parents often focus on negative behaviors vs. positive behaviors.

The Authoritarian Parenting style often leads to children becoming obedient and proficient, but they rank lower in happiness, social competence and self-esteem.

A lot of different things play a roll in parenting styles … such as:

Culture

Religion

Personality

Family size

Parental Background

Socio economic status

And education level

One of the biggest effects on parenting is socio-economic status, in reference with ethnicity and culture as well. For example, living in a dangerous neighborhood could make a parent more authoritarian due to fear of their environment. Parents who are more highly educated tend to have better jobs and better financial security, and this reduction of potential stressors has a significant effect on parenting.

Some study’s have shown that

Upper class family parents tend to be much more authoritarian

And middle to lower class family’s tend to take a different approach when it comes to parenting

Another recent study has shown that:

'Strict parents' – high on accountability and low on warmth – more than doubled their teen’s risk of heavy drinking.

In my own oppion, I have a hard time relating to the authoritarian parenting style,...