What's the Best Parenting Style? Hint: There Isn't One

We’ve all wondered what the best parenting style is to ensure we’re raising our children the best we can, but is there really a “best” parenting style? What’s your parenting style?

Photo by @latishatankard, featuring Teal Houndstooth

What’s your parenting style? Despite constantly worrying whether or not we’re raising our kids to be kind, independent people, we’ve all wondered what the best parenting style is to raise our kids. The short answer: there isn’t one. There are a variety of parenting styles that may or may not work for you, and ultimately, it’s not up to you if your parenting style works. Each child has their own personality and will respond differently to different parenting styles, so it’s important to parent the way your child needs you to but still stay true to what you believe as a parent. Are you a strong disciplinarian? Are you laid back? Better yet, are you a balance of multiple styles?

What’s your Parenting Style?

Everyone may have their own idea of the best parenting style, and scientific research may have its own recommendations. For starters, figure out how you parent or consider how you WANT to parent.

Authoritative: An authoritative parent is nurturing and supportive but sets strict boundaries for their kids in order to teach discipline and control behavior. While this teaches children rules and consequences to bad behavior, it can easily be taken too far, resulting in overly strict parenting that pushes children away. That said, most experts agree that this is the best parenting style for raising friendly, achievement-oriented children. 

Permissive: The opposite of an authoritative parent is a permissive parent. Permissive parenting is laid back, allows children freedom and does not closely monitor their activities. Although giving your child space is great for their development, permissive parenting can result in rebellious, aggressive children with lower self-esteem. 

Unresponsive: These parents are considered unresponsive because they pay little attention to their kids. Usually, this applies to parents who do not spend enough time around their kids and seem cold or rejecting. Do I really need to tell you why this isn’t a recommended parenting style?

If you’ve seen a few episodes of Working Moms on Netflix, you may have heard that one mom did not believe in using the "N word"...no. This style of parenting would fall under the permissive parenting style, but you can still take lenient approaches to raising your children and ensure they are told “no” often enough to encourage they develop good behaviors. When it comes to parenting, every person has to find their own way. There’s no outright wrong way to parent, but experts still suggest a flexible authoritative parent - one who is warm and nurturing but still knows when to put their foot down and establish boundaries. 

How to Choose a Parenting Style

For all parents, especially first-time parents, choosing the best parenting style for their family is a stressful idea. After all, you worry so much about sticking to your parenting “plan” that you may overdo it. In today’s world, it’s very easy to over-parent or under-parent, so it’s best to find the “just right” techniques for yourself and your family. That may mean some trial and error, and yes, you’re going to make mistakes. Your child will be OK.

Ultimately, no one can tell you how to parent your children, and we should all refrain from mom shaming anyone for their parenting style. We all have the right to raise our children our own way, and surely every parent has their child’s best interest at heart.

So, how would you describe your parenting style?

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