Parenting Styles: A Closer Look at a Well-Known Concept

Abstract

Although parenting styles constitute a well-known concept in parenting research, two issues have largely been overlooked in existing studies. In particular, the psychological control dimension has rarely been explicitly modelled and there is limited insight into joint parenting styles that simultaneously characterize maternal and paternal practices and their impact on child development. Using data from a sample of 600 Flemish families raising an 8-to-10 year old child, we identified naturally occurring joint parenting styles. A cluster analysis based on two parenting dimensions (parental support and behavioral control) revealed four congruent parenting styles: an authoritative, positive authoritative, authoritarian and uninvolved parenting style. A subsequent cluster analysis comprising three parenting dimensions (parental support, behavioral and psychological control) yielded similar cluster profiles for the congruent (positive) authoritative and authoritarian parenting styles, while the fourth parenting style was relabeled as a congruent intrusive parenting style. ANOVAs demonstrated that having (positive) authoritative parents associated with the most favorable outcomes, while having authoritarian parents coincided with the least favorable outcomes. Although less pronounced than for the authoritarian style, having intrusive parents also associated with poorer child outcomes. Results demonstrated that accounting for parental psychological control did not yield additional parenting styles, but enhanced our understanding of the pattern among the three parenting dimensions within each parenting style and their association with child outcomes. More similarities than dissimilarities in the parenting of both parents emerged, although adding psychological control slightly enlarged the differences between the scores of mothers and fathers.

The predictive role of marital satisfaction on the parental agreement

“…Most parents participating in this research had congruent parenting styles in terms of authoritative parenting. In line with results of this study, it is showed parents who had high levels of agreement in parenting styles were those who adopted positive parenting, whereas those exhibiting low agreement in parenting approaches were couples who implemented ineffective parenting (Kuppens & Ceulemans, 2019).…”

An Exploratory Study Into the Negotiation of Cyber-Security Within the Family Home

“…In this typology, parenting styles are defined as authoritarian (high control but low involvement) authoritative (high control and high involvement), indulgent or permissive (low control but high involvement) and neglectful (low control and low involvement). These parenting styles have been supported both conceptually and empirically in relation to developmental outcomes for children (see Kuppens and Ceulemans, 2019, for a recent review). General parenting style then, may dictate the type of approach parents take to managing cyber security in the family.…”

Parental Monitoring and Youth's Binge Behaviors: The Role of Sensation Seeking and Life Satisfaction

“…However, existing literature mostly focused on parental monitoring as a mediating variable rather than exploring its direct effects on problem behaviors (e. g., alcohol use; Kim & Neff, 2010), For instance, Barnes, Reifman, Farrell, and Dintcheff (2000) in their six-waves longitudinal analyses provided evidence that monitoring mediated the linkage between parental support and alcohol misuse. In the attempt to fill this gap, the current study investigated such a specific dimension of parenting, i. e. parental monitoring (Kuppens & Ceulemans, 2019) in order to enhance the knowledge about the beneficial impact of parents' active supervision on adolescents' positive outcomes, in terms of healthy use of either food or alcohol. As to this, it is reasonable to suppose that parents who do not adequately monitor their offspring are less involved in their lives and, consequently, may neglect the first signs of problematic behaviors (i.e., binge drinking or eating) of youngsters.…”