03-08-2007, 03:28 AM
Quote: Children for the most part seem to be loved and taken care of in our society. There are some unfortunate cases, but the majority of parents seem to have compassion for their own children.
Not according to, well, pretty much all research. all prominant research on paranting styles over the last 50 years has broken down paranting styles by two dimensions: Demandingness and Responsiveness.
Demandingness being the degree to which parants set down rules and expectations for their children and Responsiveness being the degree to which parants express love and are sensitive to their childrens needs.
The most widely used idea of paranting styles uses these dimensions and breaks down paranting styles into four distinct catagories; Authoritative, Authoritarian, Permissive, and Disengaged.
Authoritative is High in Demandingness and Responsiveness, Authoritarian: High in Demandingness and Low in Responsiveness, Permissive Low in Demandingness and High in Responsiveness, and Dissengaged is Low in both catagories.
Which is the promenint style of paranting in the US as of 1994? Dissengaged. Making up a whopping 36% of all families. (Steinberg et al. 1994) Authoritative comes in a close second. So for each family out there in america that offers love and support in conjunction with rules and expectations there is at least one, if not more, families that the parants don't offer their kids jack and doesn't care what their kids do as long as it doesn't impact them.
- Steinberg, L., Lamborn, S., Darling, N., Mounts, N., & Dornbusch, S. (1994). Over-time changes in adjustment and competence among adolescents from authoritative, authoritarian, indulgent, and neglectful families. Child Development, 65, 754-770.