Parenting Styles

Popular opinion holds that media's effect on children is a matter of the quality of parenting. This mind-set blends two distinct concepts in the research on parenting. The first is parenting practices, which refers to specific situational behaviors designed to achieve child-rearing goals (e.g., punishing bad behavior or rewarding good behavior). Parenting styles, on the other hand, represent a more stable set of attitudes and beliefs that form the context of parenting practices. For example, a parent's belief in nonviolent conflict resolution might mean rewarding a child for verbally expressing anger (rather than using fists).

Hence, parenting style is a critical but indirect influence on child development. The concept rests on two dimensions: how responsive parents are to children's needs and desires and how demanding parents are of children's obedience. Diana Baumrind developed a typology of parenting styles. The first type is called authoritative parenting and emphasizes responsiveness and demandingness. This style involves high levels of nurturance, parent-child involvement, sensitivity, reasoning, control, and encouragement of the child's independence. Authoritative parenting practices include low to moderate levels of discipline, high levels of nurturing, and high expectations of children's behaviors. Authoritarian parents emphasize obedience and are characterized by high levels of discipline, restrictiveness, rejection, and power assertion. These parents show low levels of nurturing behaviors toward children but moderate to high expectations for children's behaviors. Permissive parents, the third type, are defined in opposition to authoritarian parents. Permissive parents demonstrate a great deal of warmth and acceptance toward children but low levels of parent-child involvement and discipline. A fourth category, neglectful parents, was added in the 1980s. These parents stress neither responsiveness nor demandingness and exhibit low levels of all parenting practices. The style is characterized by high indifference to children's needs and behaviors.

Most research on parenting has tried to link these four styles to child development outcomes. Authoritative parents were most likely to have preschool children who show self-motivation, have prosocial peer interactions, persist with tasks longer, initiate new activities more frequently, and achieve more in school. Children of authoritarian parents, on the other hand, were more inhibited in their preschool participation, felt a stronger sense of external control, and were more aggressive and disruptive in their peer-play activities. Children of permissive parents were less self-reliant and less motivated to achieve than other children.

There are no studies linking parenting styles to children's media use. However, a similar concept—family communication patterns—refers to the general tone of parent-child communication. Similar to studies of parenting style, this research identified two principal dimensions. The first, a communication orientation, refers to parental communication that emphasizes a mutual understanding of thoughts, feelings, and opinions. The second, a conformity orientation, stresses parental authority and a need to agree with each other than to express disagreeable thoughts. Parents who stress both a communication and conformity orientation roughly mirror those with an authoritative parenting style. Those who stress a conformity orientation roughly mirror authoritarian parents. Parents who stress neither a conformity nor communication orientation roughly mirror permissive parents. No family communication pattern has been defined that seems related to neglectful parenting styles.

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