Four Styles of Parenting

Four Styles of Parenting
by Ron Huxley

In my book "Love & Limits: Achieving a Balance in
Parenting" I wrote about the four styles of parenting.
Each style corresponds to a balance of love and limits.
These four styles and their balance include:

* Rejecting/Neglecting: Low Love and Low Limits.

* Authoritarian: Low Love and High Limits.

* Permissive: High Love and Low Limits.

* Democratic or Balanced: High Love and High Limits.

Love and limits are terms that describe a parent's discipline
orientation. Parents who are oriented toward a "relational
discipline" are said to use love as their primary style of
parenting. Parents who use "action discipline" are said to
use limits as their primary style of parenting.

All parents incorporate both love and limits in their style of
parenting. It is the balance of love and limits that determine
a parent's particular style. Only the democratic or balanced
parenting style has both high love and high limits. In
addition, each style has strengths and weaknesses
inherent in them and are learned from the important
parental figures in our lives. These figures are usually our
own parents.

Parents who use love as their primary style (permissive
parents) consider love to be more important than limits.
They also use attachment and their bond with their child to
teach right from wrong. They spend a lot of time with the
child communicating, negotiating, and reasoning. Their
value is on "increasing their child's self-esteem" or "making
them feel special."

Parents who use limits as their primary style (authoritarian
parents) consider limits as more important than love
(relationship). They use external control to teach right from
wrong and are quick to act on a discipline problem.
Consequently, children are usually quick to react and rarely
get their parents to negotiate. The value is on "teaching
respect" and "providing structure."

Parenting styles are defined as the "manner in which
parents express their beliefs about how to be a good or bad
parent. All parents (at least 99%) want to be a good parent
and avoid doing what they consider to be a bad parent.
Parents adopt the styles of parenting learned from their
parents because 1) They don't know what else to do or 2)
They feel that this is the right way (good) to parent.

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