In the early 1960's, Diana Baumrind, a developmental psychologist conducted a famous case study regarding various parenting styles. The purpose of this study was to evaluate and articulate the effect parents have on their preschool age children. Primarily through interview and observation, Baumrind and her research team were able to successfully develop a practical parenting style model. This model was created to highlight the importance of effectively parenting children in a successful manner. I completely agree with the importance of optimum parenting for a child's success. From everything we've learned thus far in Developmental Psychology, children are a reflection of their parents. It is imperative that parents take their responsibility and role seriously in order for that child to develop physically, socially, psychologically and emotionally in a healthy manner. .
Baumrind identified three different parenting styles: the Authoritarian, the Permissive, and the Authoritative. These three parenting styles were ultimately defined by using two specific measuring tools. These analytical tools that Baumrind's team used were Parental Demandingness vs. Parental Undemandingness and Parental Responsiveness vs. Parental Unresponsiveness. The first parenting style that Baumrind discovered is referred to as the Authoritarian. A typical authoritarian parent is predictable when it comes to rules and consequences. Strict control of children is maintained by rigid rules enforced with either threat or punishment. Authoritarian parents are typically conservative. There is a high level of demandingness as well as a high level of responsiveness. With this parenting style, children seem to learn quickly of what is expected of them from their parents and other authority figures (teachers, coaches, law enforcement etc.) Unfortunately, research shows that these children also seem to have difficulty making choices on their own and are more prone to self-esteem issues.