Parenting Styles

The text identifies three styles of parenting and discusses their effects on the social development of children. Permissive parents make few demands and tend to submit to the wishes of their children. Authoritarian parents dictate rules and expect blind obedience. Authoritative parents set and enforce rules after discussion with their children. If you’d like more information before continuing the exercise, below are two very informative links:

http://www.kidsource.com/better.world.press/parenting.html
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/hstein/parentin.htm

Your task in this exercise is to reflect on the impact parents have on the development of their children by analyzing your own upbringing, and imagining how you might have turned out differently had other parents raised you. To guide your reflection, prepare answers to the following questions:

1. How would you characterize the style of parenting under which you were raised? Was the same style used by both of your parents?

2. What specific behavioral effects of your upbringing can you identify in yourself?

3. How about your parents' upbringing? How would they (or you) characterize the style of parenting used by their parents (your grandparents)?

4. Now think creatively about who you might have been had you been raised by other parents. Prepare two brief descriptions of how you might have developed, one for each of the two remaining styles of parenting.