The Upbringing Styles: What Kind Of Parent Am I?

Parenting styles are social constructions that involve the behaviors, attitudes, gestures, verbal and paraverbal messages from parents to their children and the communicational or technical and tactical strategies, both conscious and voluntary and involuntary, that they use in child rearing .

No institution teaches us to be parents. This role is learned from the type of upbringing received and is characterized by actions and corrections that the parents believe are correct. Thus, the family of origin is the standard of reference when it comes to raising children.

However, parents are also a mirror that their children look at, and they give back their reflection. That is, the styles of creation involve the transmission of involuntary information. In this way, parents are more transparent than they believe: they transmit values, beliefs, forms of affective expression, communication styles, etc. Next, we’ll delve a little deeper into this subject.

Parenting Styles: What Kind of Parent Am I?

One of the best known theories of parenting styles was developed by psychologist Diana Baumrind . She classified fathers and mothers into four categories:

• Authoritarian: characterized by telling children exactly what they have to do.
• Permissive: Allow children to do what they want.
• Democratic: provide norms and guidance without being dominant.
• Careless: they don’t take their children into consideration and their interests are focused on other areas.

Democratic

They are balanced parents who maintain frequent and open communication in which dialogue is the best method to get children to improve their understanding.

They are demanding and responsive and are child-focused. Furthermore, they want them to become autonomous and mature people through the process of creation. These types of parents understand their children’s feelings and teach them to deal with them.

Generally, they are not as controlling, allowing the child to venture into their experiences with greater freedom, thus letting them make decisions based on their own ideas.

These parents, by supporting their children’s personal initiative, allow them to resolve the problems they face in their daily lives. This makes the autonomy of children stronger.

When they establish a punishment, they explain the reasons for the punishment, which, in general, are moderate, neither severe nor arbitrary, since, although they are used to forgiving, they try to teach rather than punish. This means that they tend to raise children who have higher self-esteem and who will gradually become more autonomous.

These parents propose clear norms and affectively set limits. They also allow children to develop their independence and expect mature behavior, but always appropriate for their children’s age, that is, behavior that is in line with their evolutionary cycle.

authoritarian

They are over-demanding parents, unreceptive, and have high expectations of their children. They impose a totalitarian regime that is characterized by high expectations of compliance with family norms, in which there is little open dialogue between parents and children, much less to discuss an order.

They are parents with a restrictive style who punish when what they tried to impose is not fulfilled, and they expect their children to respect the work and effort they put into raising them.

They do not facilitate dialogue and sometimes reject it as a disciplinary measure. For example: “as long as you don’t do what I’m saying, don’t talk to me” . Often, the only explanation they give is “because I’m in charge”.

They are less sensitive to their children’s needs and are more likely to hit or yell at a child rather than discuss the problem. Children who are the offspring of this kind of upbringing may have fewer social skills because parents often tell them what to do, rather than allowing them to choose on their own.

They are parents who exercise discipline without granting any autonomy to their children and who consider obedience a virtue. Therefore, they favor the measures of punishment or force.

permissive

They are parents very sensitive to the child’s needs and desires, and are characterized by having low behavioral expectations towards them. It is a parenting style in which parents are very involved, but have few demands and control over their children’s lives. The absence of boundaries prevents children from acquiring self-control skills.

Children of permissive parents tend to be immature, do not control their impulses or are socially responsible, tend to be more impulsive and, in adolescence, may participate more in marginal behaviors. Children never learn to control their own behavior and always expect to get away with it.

careless

These fathers and mothers are neither demanding nor flexible. They are also called non-participating or disinterested. They are cold and controlling and are not usually involved in their children’s lives. In this way, they do not demand, set limits or encourage the adoption of responsibilities by the children.

Careless parents often ignore their children’s emotions and opinions. They do not support them either, but they supply their basic needs (housing, education, food). They are often absent emotionally and sometimes physically as well. That is, although they are physically present, there is no communication.

They are not or are not able to be sensitive to the needs of children and do not demand anything from them in their behavioral expectations. Those who grew up and lived in a neglectful environment may experience emotional and behavioral problems in adulthood.

For these children, the lack of affection and advice has very negative effects on their development. As a result, they feel insecure, devalued and dependent. They have difficulty socializing and have a low tolerance for frustration.

Specific typologies of creation styles

In my work with teenagers, I observed a number of parental peculiarities in interviews with parents and children. Based on Baumrind’s typology, I synthetically highlight some parental typologies, although it must be taken into account that there are no pure parenting styles, they are often combinations that give a particular bias to parenting.

• Guilty: those parents who, if they impose limits, feel guilty. They seek to be recognized and loved by their children and, in their imagination, NO implies running the risk of being rejected.
• Demanding: they stimulate their children, knowing the possibilities of each one, valuing and motivating them.
• Over-demanding: always highlight what has not been achieved. They do not value what has been done, but what has not been done. It’s an implicit way of devaluing.

• Authoritarian: they are dictators who do not explain the reasons for their limits and orders. It doesn’t matter what the children want, but what they believe is best for them.
• Timely limiters: it is the fathers and mothers who set effective, clear, flexible and explained limits.
• Super suppliers: these are parents who believe that giving everything and satisfying all their children’s needs and amenities will ensure their growth.
• Permissives unlimited : Parents who accept too much of what their children want and don’t put the brakes on their ideas. There are no limits. These parents tend not to guide and end up under the authority of their own children.
• Claimants: these parents need their children’s affection and recognition, they seek to please them and be valued by them. They are convinced that their children will be no better off elsewhere than at home.

• Overprotective birds: they take extreme care of their children, not encouraging them to become independent. Basically, they’re afraid that something might happen to them. They act and do it for them.
• Projectors: are those parents who try to deposit their frustrated desires on their children. They deposit in their children what they were unable to achieve in their own lives. They don’t listen to their wishes.
• Suppliers: they are parents who guide their children. They provide advice, but they provide freedom for children to go their own way. They can give something, but as a stepping stone towards independence. They know how to release them.
• Omnipotent: they can do anything. They give their children everything they need and more. They are convinced that this is the best way to act as parents. Allowance for children, car and paid bills.
• Communicators: prioritize communicating and explaining what is tacitly linked to the family. Don’t pressure. On the contrary, they respect the times, ask questions and avoid assuming.

• Liberators: encourage freedom and independence. They are almost expulsive, but without measuring the real emotional or maturity possibilities of their children to become independent.
• Appreciators: are emotionally nutritious. They express affection and appreciation through words and actions, but, in addition, they demonstrate it with their attitudes.

There are some lethal combinations of breeding styles, such as the following:

• Liberating and omnipotent: in addition to encouraging freedom without measure, they also provide everything and don’t let children grow up. They provide an apartment for them to live alone, but bear all the expenses. They tend to confuse their children, as they encourage them towards independence, but they supply all their needs.

• The bad and the good: one parent can be authoritarian and the other guilty. One can set extreme, rigid limits, in addition to giving orders and punishing, while the other covers up, protects and punishes. It is a triangle that favors the coalition.
• Permissive guilty : they do not impose limits and feel guilty when establishing them, which is why they inexorably end up becoming children of their own children. That is, an inverse hierarchy is established: children who dominate and parents who submit to them.
• Overdemanding projectors: in addition to not seeing their children and their desires or aspirations, they also demand too much, ignoring what the children want and, fundamentally, can do. They tend to highlight what is missing, according to the parameters in which they project themselves. If the characteristic of authoritarian parents is added to this, the situation worsens even more.

A nutritious and functional parenting is one that favors growth, autonomy, communication, affective expressions and clear boundaries. Therefore, it gathers the following characteristics: Valuing fathers and mothers + Affective suppliers + Productive demanders + Timely limiters + Communicators.

Far from the utopia of ideal parenting and closer to that of healthy and functional parenting, exercising a good parenting style is a daily learning experience in this beautiful task of being a father and a mother.