Authoritative Child Rearing

Child rearing is defined in our book as combinations of parenting behaviors that occur over a wide range of situations, creating an enduring child rearing climate. There are four different types of child rearing called authoritative child rearing, authoritarian child rearing, permissive child rearing, and uninvolved child rearing. The first, authoritative, is the most successful and includes high involvement, acceptance and adaptive control techniques. The second is authoritarian with low acceptance, involvement, and high coercive control. Third, the permissive, allows children too much freedom with choices and ultimately ends with bad behavior. Fourth and last is uninvolved which works exactly as it sounds the parents are uninvolved
entirely and show an indifference to their children. My parent's have used the authoritative technique. I was always allowed to make my own decisions regarding certain situations when I was ready for that step and it has helped me a lot with growing up. I do not need to be told to clean the house or do my laundry. I have the capability to look at a situation and explore all the options before making my decision through the times I have done so with my parents. They have always encouraged me to be true to myself and decide what I want to do while standing on the sidelines giving me advice when I asked for it. There is one issue in that my mom is bipolar and will not admit it. She used a lot of psychological control during adolescence that shaped how I looked at the world for several years. I do not trust people easily I start shaking during any confrontation and would rather just hide somewhere than deal with it. I believe her style of parenting comes from the way her mother raised her which I learned was awful. Both of my parents' parents are divorced so they have done their best to be better than the example they were given and have changed a lot from what their parents did so that affected the way they raised me.