Not Yours to Give

[kandrathe]

Not according to, well, pretty much all research. ...

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.

I found abstracts to your source, but not the full research article. It's hard to assess its methodology without access to the full research. So even by this study, 76% are not disengaged, meaning they are authoritarian, authoritative or permissive. I guess we are assuming that disengaged is the really bad quadrant. I studied adolescent psychology pretty extensively in college as well, and this type of analysis was prevalent. I find this research to be very subjective, and now that I am a parent I'm not sure just how you would determine a parenting style from surveys or even spot in time observations. Personally, with my children, I have been all of those 4 styles at different times depending on how exhausted I am, what tragedies have occurred in the family, or how long I've had them couped up in the house when it's negative 40 wind chill outside. Overall, I'd say I was authoritative yet nurturing.

Ok, my 2nd nit to pick with this. Breaking down parenting into a 2x2 matrix, and then determining who falls where seems to trivialize parenting, just as Myers-Briggs trivializes the variability of human personality. Your parenting methods need to adapt to the types of children that you have, but there are some general guidelines that should be in place. All children need boundaries, discipline (meaning a set routine), correction if they stray, and tons of love and encouragement.

I will try to find a better reference-able source, and please post a link for this or others if you can find one.