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The National Association for the Education of Young Children defines early childhood as ranging from birth to age 8. Parenting practices strongly shape a child's behavior during this time, including from the first days of life. In the first year and a half of life, how often and well parents engage infants and respond to their needs helps define the parent–child attachment. In the second year of life the emerging toddler develops a sense of self. Shortly after self-recognition occurs, toddlers realize that their wishes and desires sometimes differ from those of their mother and father. This initiates the stage sometimes called the “terrible twos” and places a new requirement on parents: to promote toddler compliance and to prevent and respond effectively to noncompliance. The style with which parents do these things over the next several years strongly influences children's character and self-worth.

Parenting Styles

Parenting style reflects the ways in which parents relate to, relay messages to, set rules for, and respond to rule infractions by their children. Psychologist Diana Baumrind of the University of California, Berkeley, has provided the most influential theory of parenting styles in early childhood. She developed her theory by observing, interviewing, and visiting the homes of two large groups of middle-class Caucasian parents and their preschool children. In 1967 Baumrind identified three types of parenting styles: authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive. Researchers later identified a fourth parenting style observed in more extreme and dysfunctional homes, uninvolved, and observed that one could classify much of the behavior within these parenting styles as attempts to either (a) develop and maintain a warm, responsive relationship or (b) assert control over children, teaching lessons about appropriate ways to behave.

Authoritative Parenting

An authoritative style of parenting involves high levels of both warmth/responsiveness and control. Authoritative parents display warmth by attending to their children's needs and responding to their questions. Parents reward children for good choices and positive behavior. Such parents typically provide a structured framework for their children by setting clear guidelines and enforcing these rules. Although a clear hierarchy exists within the home, authoritative parents often encourage the growth of autonomy by allowing children to make choices from an acceptable range of behaviors. Parents typically also explain the rationale behind their rules and expectations.

The authoritative parenting style is associated with healthy social and academic development in children. The structured environment and enforcement of rules likely encourage children to complete their assignments and excel academically. Compared with their same-aged peers, children of authoritative parents display self-confidence in their approach to challenging tasks and, later on, earn better grades in school. The opportunities for

child decision making and openness to hear child opinions that authoritative parents often provide seem to have a positive impact on children's social and emotional development. Children of authoritative parents tend to have higher levels of self-confidence and self-esteem. In addition, due to consistent follow-through in the enforcement of household rules, children of authoritative parents learn at a young age that whining and aggressive behavior do not result in positive outcomes. Instead, children learn to regulate their emotions and try more positive attempts at getting what they want, such as asking nicely and negotiating. Children typically carry these lessons into their peer interactions and have more positive interactions and fewer confrontations and hostile encounters with peers.

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