Choosing a parenting style can often feel like choosing a religion. Parents often feel like they have to adopt a particular parenting style upon the birth of their first child and then blindly accept everything that goes along with that parenting style. Yet, it is virtually impossible that every aspect of a parenting style will work for you since every child is different and every family is different. It is inevitable that something will feel “off” to you and when this happens, parents often assume that there is something wrong with themselves or with their child. Parents might assume that they don’t have what it takes to be a particular type of parent when in actuality no parenting style will ever fit perfectly.
As a psychologist that specializes in advising parents, I strongly suggest to parents that they don’t feel limited by a particular parenting style but instead that they develop their own parenting style. Parents can easily develop their own parenting style by choosing the aspects that they like of the available parenting styles and not worrying about any aspects that don’t work for their family. In this way, parents can come up with their own unique parenting style that is a flexible and customized amalgamation of multiple parenting styles.
The first step behind developing your own parenting style is understanding the many different parenting styles and the research behind them. The best place to start is the original three parenting styles that have been studied through research for decades. These three parenting styles (authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive parenting) give us a framework to understand all of the other parenting styles that have emerged since then. They were first identified in the 1960’s by psychologist Diana Baumrind and have been extensively studied since then.
Authoritative Parenting:
Authoritative parenting involves consistent consequences alongside a nurturing and warm parent-child relationship. Authoritative parents provide both high levels of rules and limits and high levels of emotional support. In other words, the expectations are high but so is the love. Decades of research consistently finds that this parenting style has been linked with the most positive outcomes for children, such as fewer behavioral problems, greater resilience, higher self-esteem, improved social skills, and better grades just to name a few. However, authoritative parenting as studied by the research is a theoretical concept and it may feel to you that it does not give you enough guidance as a parent. Even if you understand that you need to balance being a strict yet loving parent, it might be unclear what this actually looks like in practice.
Authoritarian Parenting:
Authoritarian parents have a high level of rules and limits like authoritative parents but don’t have the same level of warmth and nurturing. They have high expectations and strict rules and are ready to mete out serious consequences when the rules are broken. They believe that decisions should be made by parents and do not often consider their child’s opinion or perspective. This strict and stern version of parenting can be thought of as “old school parenting” for a lack of a better term. Authoritarian parents may endorse sentiments such as “children should be seen and not heard,” “spare the rod, spoil the child,” and “because I told you so.” This parenting style is linked to increased risk for anxiety and depression and lower self-esteem in children and, ironically enough, worse behavior.
Permissive or Indulgent Parenting:
This parenting style involves a high level of warmth and nurturing but not as many rules and limits. Permissive parents also allow their children a lot of autonomy and choice— probably too much in fact. These parents are often accused of spoiling or coddling their children. Permissive parenting is associated with some negative outcomes such as behavioral problems and difficulties with self-regulation but also some positive outcomes such as social skills, self-confidence, and creativity.
Neglectful or Uninvolved Parenting:
This parenting style was first described by researchers Eleanor Maccoby and John Martin in the 1980’s. It involves both a lack of nurturing and love and a lack of rules and structure. These parents are very disengaged from their children’s lives. Research consistently finds that this style of parenting is associated with the worst outcomes for children— significantly more so than authoritarian or permissive parenting. These children tend to have difficulty with self-regulation, behavior, social skills, school performance, and they struggle with depression and anxiety.
These parenting styles give us a great framework to understand different types of parents but not a lot of specific guidance. Here are other parenting styles with less research but that have appealed to parents and provide more concrete options for parents:
Gentle Parenting:
Recently there has been a movement on social media and in the parenting community more broadly to practice gentle parenting. The exact definition of gentle parenting is not completely clear because it is not a term that has been studied in the research or used by psychologists in clinical practice. Based on the way gentle parenting is described by most gentle parenting advocates, it seems similar to authoritative parenting yet it involves some more specific guidance that, in practice, can make it seem more like permissive parenting. Some aspects of gentle parenting are not backed by research, including the suggestion that parents should avoid all consequences and rewards. It may also feel unrealistic and hard to implement in the real world. Yet, gentle parenting also involves ideas that every child psychologist or expert in child development would endorse such as respecting the child, empathizing with and validating your child, and building the parent-child bond through positive experiences.
Free-Range Parenting:
This is a parenting philosophy that encourages parents to let their children experience age-appropriate risks and have more independence in the world. It typically involves limited parent supervision and allowing children to explore their environments with very limited parent intervention. It also involves more of a focus on child-led, unstructured activities over adult organized activities. In practice, this might mean letting your children walk home from school or letting them explore your backyard while you stay inside. The research on free-range parenting is limited but the research we have on allowing children autonomy suggests that free-range parenting may make children more confident, independent, and self-regulated. It would also make sense that free-range parenting may help to reduce parent’s anxiety in the long-term (although it may increase anxiety in the short-term) and may help to reduce the demands on parents.
Attachment Parenting:
This style of parenting was developed by pediatrician William Sears. It involves a set of behaviors including cosleeping, breastfeeding, babywearing, and responding to baby’s cries. Although research has found benefits for some of these behaviors (such as breastfeeding and babywearing), research has yet to support attachment parenting as a whole or to link attachment parenting with a stronger parent-child bond. Critics of attachment parenting argue that it places too much pressure on one parent (usually the mother).
Conscious Parenting:
Conscious parenting involves bringing awareness to your own parenting and focusing on how your behaviors, thoughts, and emotions as a parent impact your child. Conscious parents often focus on regulating themselves first, listening and showing empathy to their children, and modeling the behavior they want to see in their children. They are constantly working on their own mindfulness and emotional regulation skills in order to help their children to also develop these skills. There isn’t research looking specifically at conscious parenting but most psychologists would agree that these approaches are important and there is research showing the importance of parent emotional regulation. If you want to be a more conscious parent, you can practice mindfulness, deep breathing, and other coping strategies to improve your own emotional regulation skills. You can also try to change your perspective on your children’s challenging behavior by focusing more on your response than their behavior.
RIE Parenting:
RIE (Resources for Infant Educarers) is a parenting approach popularized by Janet Lansbury. The RIE approach was developed by an early childhood educator, Magda Gerber, and inspired by Hungarian pediatrician, Emmi Pikler, who developed the Pikler approach. The RIE approach focuses on having an authentic and respectful relationship with your child and treating them with respect as an independent and capable human being. In practice, this involves observing your child to better understand their behavior, involving your child in all caregiving tasks, speaking to them as you would an adult, giving them a safe and predictable environment, allowing time for uninterrupted play, and setting boundaries with empathy. There have yet to be any peer-reviewed, empirical research articles examining the effectiveness of RIE or Janet Lansbury’s approach as a whole so we don’t know whether this approach works or improves child outcomes. There are aspects of RIE that are not backed by research such as the prohibitions against pacifiers, tummy time, babywearing, swaddles, and time-out.
Lighthouse Parenting:
Lighthouse parenting is a relatively new term developed by Dr. Ken Ginsburg. It refers to a parenting style in which parents stand back and guide their children without intervening. They are like a lighthouse that points out the dangers in their children’s environments while letting their child “steer their own boat.” They do not remove the dangers or prevent their child from experiencing them. In other words, parents are present and caring but also give their children independence and autonomy. This style is often contrasted with “helicopter” parenting in which parents are actively intervening in their children’s lives and solving problems for them. An example of lighthouse parenting would be gIving your child strategies for remembering their homework but not bringing it to school for them if they forget. In the research, lighthouse parenting is referred to as autonomy-supportive parenting, and research finds many benefits for supporting your child’s autonomy and independence such as improved well-being, social skills, and intrinsic motivation.
Montessori Parenting:
Another parenting style that seems to be increasing in popularity in recent years is Montessori parenting. This parenting style is based on an educational philosophy developed by Italian physician Maria Montessori. This approach stresses self-directed, independent play involving a very specific (and often expensive) set of materials. Parents do not direct or instruct their children but simply guide and assist them as needed. Rewards and punishment are not used with the idea that children should develop intrinsic motivation. Although no research has studied the Montessori approach to parenting, research on the educational practice is mixed so we do not have any evidence that it provides a distinct advantage. We also have no evidence that Montessori toys provide an advantage. Research does support the Montessori principles that learning should be play-based, child-led, and hands-on. In addition, the focus on building independent skills may be beneficial for children.
Helicopter Parenting:
Helicopter parenting or overprotective parenting is a style of parenting that involves parents that are excessively involved and controlling of their children. A similar style is “bulldozer parenting” or “snowplow parenting,” which refers to parents who remove all obstacles/problems in their child’s path. Research finds that these parenting styles are associated with increased anxiety and depression in children and being more likely to be dependent on others as adults. Research also finds that helicopter parenting is associated with poor self-regulation skills since children don’t get the chance to practice regulating themselves in difficult situations. Parents often become helicopter parents because there is a fine line between being a helicopter parent and a responsive and involved parent. Parents can walk this fine line by stepping back and allowing their children to make their own choices, fail or make mistakes, and experience negative emotions.
DR. CARA DAMIANO GOODWIN, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist and a Charlottesville mother to four children. She received a PhD in child clinical psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a Master’s in Developmental Psychiatry from Cambridge University, and a Master’s in Child Psychology from Vanderbilt University. Dr. Goodwin completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Duke University. She specializes in child development and has spent years researching child psychology and neuroscience and providing therapy and clinical services for children of all ages. She has published 18 research articles in peer-reviewed academic journals, written two book chapters, and completed numerous conference presentations. Dr. Goodwin translates recent scientific research into information parents can access and implement in their everyday lives through her Instagram account @parentingtranslator and her website: www.ParentingTranslator.com.
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