Parenting Practices across Families of Color

Nancy Darling and Lawrence Steinberg defined parenting practices as the means by which parents socialize their children. For example, parents may believe children should sit still and use good manners at the dinner table, but how parents accomplish this goal of teaching their children to have good manners varies. Some use physical punishment, others explain why good manners are important, and some may not intervene at all. The behaviors parents use to achieve their goal constitute parenting practices.

Much of the research that has examined parenting behavior has focused on parenting style, which refers to the emotional atmosphere created by parents. Diana Baumrind identified three parenting styles that are characteristic of how parents generally intervene with children across various situations. Parents who are consistently stern, lack ...